Friday, April 23, 2010
While We're on the Subject of Pointless Blog Posts that Add No Insight or Substantive Value Whatsoever...
This is a pretty good example. Do we really need another blogger blogging about how other bloggers aren't as smart as some other blogger thinks he is? Wake me when we can talk about baseball.
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13 comments:
So who's going to post to their blog about how this blog is the most useless? Back to baseball!
What I don't understand is why there is a small handful of Nats bloggers that feel that they are better than others and rip on other bloggers and are so territorial. The Nationals bloggers should be encouraging each other because Nats needs more fans and bloggers help get info to the fans.
If you look at the Caps bloggers, there are MANY more than the Nats and they are a welcoming community.
It is great that the Nats are trying something new. It has only been a couple of days. Give the new blogs time to get rolling and find different things to report about.
The more the merrier in the Natosphere in my opinion.
I think the root problem here is there's just not that much to talk about with this team right now. They are playing .500 ball, but nobody is too excited because a regression to the mean is most likely imminent.
Strasburg is a great story, but even if he is called up in early June, what's the most amount of wins he could add before being sent back down in September? 5 ?
So maybe we end up winning 80 instead of 75.
Steven -- so you're acknowledging that there's been nothing interesting done with a press pass then?
And you really got me good! Oooh! I may not be able to sit for weeks.
Love -- It's not that I think I'm better than others. That's completely missing the point.
Back in the dark ages, I did as much to introduce people to other Nats blogs as anyone. I used to do regular round-up pieces linking to things that others were writing that I found interesting. Now, with Google Reader and the sharing sidebar, everyone can do that without having to actually write up things. I know I get a lot of traffic from other sites through the sidebar, and I know other sites get traffic from me.
It's also not a matter of territory. This isn't even in the most remote sense about any sort of jealousy, or me being upset at not being given a pass. I think I wrote pretty clearly at the time that I don't think that ANY blog (perhaps aside from NFA) deserves or (more importantly) NEEDS a press pass. And reading through a bunch of other Nats Blogs, there's a bunch who feel the same way.
Was the post snarky and curt? Yep. But that's the way I write. I'm still waiting for something interesting to come from this experiment; I have my doubts.
Completely off subject, but has Sabremetrics done studies on performance of players on good teams vs bad teams? The CW is that players perform better when their team is in contention and will "slack" when the team fails, but do the numbers back this up?
I just wasted 15 minutes eaves dropping on a spat between bloggers about Nats coverage. Maybe DC IS becoming a baseball town....
@Chris--Love's impression of you is pretty similar to mine. Smart guy, good blog, I link and read, but whether you intend to or not, you come across as turfy, arrogant, and clubby, like you're the gatekeeper to who should be considered a good Nationals blogger and who shouldn't.
Also, you have a tendency to be thin-skinned--you can dish out the snark, but you can't take it. Case in point, your comment here. You're the kid on the playground who picks a fight, then asks for a truce as soon as the other kid starts fighting back, then starts throwing sucker punches again as soon as the other kid lets his guard down. That's been my experience anyway.
As for the actual value of the work Dave is doing, here's my take (and all this could apply to blogs on news, politics, sports, anything): competition is good, and I believe that an active grassroots, populist media has an important role to play in holding power accountable and adding voices to the debate. It always has, and that's even more true today as the media is more and more dominated by a few big corporate outlets. If there are only one or two (or zero) reporters following a beat, the coverage will evenutally decline to total worthlessness. That's just the basic economic principle. But it took literally thousands of muckrakers and zines and independent papers to produce one Studs Terkel. We'll see what happens with the NatsRoots, but I'm for more voices, not less, and I disagree with those who would shut down new voices just as they're getting going.
Dave's stuff will get the audience it deserves, but I think it's premature to say after a week that he's never going to write anything worthwhile.
I also don't think he's immune from criticism, though I think it's a a lot more interesting (and fair) to go after the sacred cows than the upstart newbies.
If I were thin-skinned, I wouldn't be open to debate as much as I am. I usually engage my critics, and usually with substance. (at least when they're being fair)
I'm not sure what's thin-skinned about my response here. the 'you got me' part? I don't think that's thin-skinned; I think that's a reasonable reaction to a shot. Calling you a douchebag would've been thin-skinned. I took my shot, indicated that it wasn't much, and moved on.
I can definitely see where I'd come across as arrogant. I wrote aggressively at times -- definitly forceful and opinionated. That, to use the cliche, is what it is.
As far as the gatekeeper thing, I'm not sure what you mean by that. It's not like I'm doing anything to prevent people from writing. Do I think that some Nats blogs suck? Yep. Do I think that mine sucks sometimes? Yep. This isn't kindergarten where everyone gets a ribbon at the end of the day.
On the new voices thing, sure. I'm all for it in theory. I just am very skeptical that we're going to see much of value from the press pass experiment. I know I'm not the only one. But I'm not always right, as I've demonstrated time and time again! :)
Here's a comment Needham made on his own blog relative to this discussion:
"Fair enough.
I'd argue, though, that by accepting a press pass from the team, they should be willing to take some heat.
If they want to pretend they're big boys, they should be willing to take what comes.
(I've taken my fair share of shots, too... comes with the territory! :)"
Interesting, coming from a guy who refuses to publicly address the real reason he no longer has his gig at NBCWashington.com (which BTW probably would have automatically gotten him Nats media credentials even outside of this blogger initiative) and who immediately deletes any comment to his blog that dares to mention it.
A couple of links for those who may be unaware of what I'm talking about:
http://www.abetterwestvirginia.com/2009/12/23/nbc-washington-not-the-first-to-bash-west-virginia/
http://buzzardbilly.blogspot.com/2009/12/nbc-washington-bashes-wv-botm-candidate.html
http://www.enlightenedredneck.com/2009/12/24/chris-needham-is-a-bigot/
I have addressed that a few times. And I've offered you to email me if you wanted to talk about it further.
And, yes, although you refuse to believe it, I stopped writing for the site on my own terms. I wasn't asked to quit. I got a new job, and my schedule changed, meaning I didn't have time.
Were they happy that I quit? Perhaps. You'd have to talk to them about that.
Again, if you want to talk about it further, shoot me an email.
OK enough Chris-bashing and navel-gazing. We have a modestly interesting pitcher making his MLB debut tonight. Anyone who's interested in that topic, there's a new post.
Chris Needham said...
I have addressed that a few times.
If so, it would seem you could provide a link or two to someplace where you did so, wouldn't it? You claim to be open to criticism that's fair, yet you duck this topic every time it's raised. Something smells here, I'd say.
Ahem. I'm killing this thread.
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