I'd greatly prefer opt-out, myself. Come for the baseball, stay for the other stuff...

It's kind of funny that we political posters are deemed the black sheep of BBTF; we generate tons of posts for the site.

If my conservative ninny fellow poliposters weren't so wrong about labor organizing, we'd unionize!

I'd greatly prefer opt-out, myself. Come for the baseball, stay for the other stuff...

I would too, but I trust Jim when he says that he can't do it. Andy, my assumption of "resource hog" is not bandwidth, but computer processing power. It would significantly slow things down if every time Hot Topics was displayed, it had to be cross-referenced with my list of opt-outs. Especially when the list of opt-outs grows and grows since you're never likely to delete an opt-out (because you never see the thread).

I do have a concern over these micro-tags or whatever they're called. We have tags on the site right now and they're used partially for their intended purpose and partially for humor. I don't know if they're searchable now, but I'd bet if you searched on "obituaries" you'd get about 10 threads on players who have died and 1,500 threads on players like Moyer, Livan, etc.

I'm leery of this change, myself. I will probably end up subscribing to everything so that I don't miss anything. And just putting up with the Hot Topics mess. Maybe if the basketball and soccer threads really are self-contained I'll not subscribe to those.

I hate the political threads but I will say I'm wary of what I'm reading here. I think the ability to subscribe to certain topics I'm interested in should allow me to find those items I'm interested in and dodge those I'm not.

I guess I just dont understand why "don't read wht you don't like" doesn't work for people. As a general rule I simply avoid threads over 100 posts because at best it's just repetitive and at worst it's ugly. Rarely do I find such a thread maintains interest. Same goes for the off topic threads. I don't care bout the NBA and while I know we have a long standing thread I just don't read it, no skin off my nose if others want to waste their time on basketball.

Having said that if this redesign makes Jim and Repoz life easier I'm all for it. This is a pretty great corner of the intertubes and I'm glad it exists. If this makes things smoother for people who maintain it in their free time for no pay I'm cool with it.

It's kind of funny that we political posters are deemed the black sheep of BBTF; we generate tons of posts for the site.

Two things:

* there is a huge unstated assumption there that generating posts is a goal in an of itself. Call it the Bernal Diaz argument.
* you have no idea how many posters you've driven away from the site with the political threads (and steroids threads, and all the other stupid mindless threads). Let's not pretend it's zero.

Ray, the value of the posts in the political threads is more than questionable. There is a value in having off-topic discussions in that it can help foster a sense of community. Of course, that's assuming a cordial discussion. Otherwise, there is only value to the people actively participating in the thread.

(FYI, there is no financial value to the threads. I know many of the people who participate think otherwise but they are wrong.)

I would too, but I trust Jim when he says that he can't do it.

Huh? If you can do opt-in, you can do opt-out. I think The Jim has expressed a preference for opt-in (as have other posters and possibly advertisers).

If in vs. out is a technical restriction, then obviously, I understand, but it's my impression that The Jim thinks that opt-in is the way to go. See here:

So, regardless, you will be happy. At the same time, people who come to the site for other reasons will be happier. Win. Win.

I don't want to belabor the point, as Jim has obviously thought about it and made up his mind. I think that random curiosity drives a lot of new commentators, and I'd hate to miss out on new people's opinions because they didn't know about a section of the site. But, them's the breaks.

From reading about the rumored changes to the site, I'm kinda worried about BTF turning into something like SBNation's collection of team-specific sites. What I mean is, it seems like Primer will have pages specifically dedicated to White Sox talk, Cardinals' talk, politics' talk, etc. So White Sox talk would be restricted to the White Sox page, and Cards' talk would be restricted to the Cards' page, et cetera and never the twain shall meet. I like the idea of a Red Sox fan posting about the White Sox; it's one of my favorite parts of this site, getting perspective from fans of other teams. I think, with team-specific pages, these types of conversations will be hampered.

Also, as a fan of a not-so-popular BTF team (White Sox), I really can't see a Sox page generating enough interest to support 5 or 6 articles per day. Team-specific sites like White Sox Interactive & South Side already cover this niche & I think it'll be difficult getting that kind of audience here.

Although I've posted in some of the political threads, I think Harveys is quite accurate in noting that they frequently end up with the same relatively small group of Primates making fairly predictable arguments, and it seems in many cases, rehashing old arguments, interspersed with considerable name-calling and insults. It's not surprising to hear that many people who come to a website devoted to baseball for the thinking fan aren't interested in these spats. I don't blame Furtado for trying to limit these threads although I'm not sure how successful this effort will be.

The Schilling thread at the moment is a (civil) discussion of college tuition/loans/higher education issues. Is that the kind of thing that is to be avoided/frowned upon?

But discussing Curt Schilling's company's financial woes, or Clemens' legal troubles, or the like, can't easily be shoehorned into a single politics thread.

I guess I am not really clear on:

1. What exactly is meant by "politics."
2. Whether the issue is what people talk about or how they talk about it.
3. How much this is just about certain posters.

As to #1, I think the better term is "worldview threads" and how those go mostly depend on how polarizing the topic is. For example, there was a long, heated discussion about the 51-year prison sentence that was given to the guy who (well past the legal alcohol limit with a record of DUIs) plowed his car into the car that was carrying Nick Adenhart. Was that a "political" thread? Apparently so, I would assume.

As to #2, looking at the situation with Schilling (and Mr. Furtado himself posted one Schilling link), other than the fact that Schilling played baseball, the story has nothing to do with baseball. In addition, Schilling himself is polarizing, as are the issues of government spending/"corporate welfare" and the current issues in the US and global economy. So, while a couple of those threads became video game discussions, it was pretty obvious, given the history of BTF, that the discussions would to some extent get both ideological and testy. OTOH, people still complain about the PED threads, and those are clearly a key baseball issue.

As to #3, there is some hostility towards the posters (maybe 15-20 people, with 5-7 hardcores) who talk about politics specifically on a very frequent basis. Is this actually a site-level issue?

Obviously, Mr. Furtado can do as he wishes, and I will keep coming to the site regardless, as I have never really seen the point of complaining too much (although I have complained some) about a site that is:

a) Great
b) Free

But I am a little hazy on what is going on here.

If this were so clearly true, the political threads that Jim/Dan sent to the forums would have continued to thrive there without missing a beat. But instead, the threads fizzled and died a quick death.

Agree.


Jim is going to end up with a very different site.

Absolutely agree. I do wonder if he's ready for that.

OTOH, people still complain about the PED threads, and those are clearly a key baseball issue.

Right. People will complain about anything. Why they don't simply ignore the threads they don't wish to read - as I do with the silly basketball threads - is a mystery.

But I am a little hazy on what is going on here.

It's not clear to me either what is going on here.

If you can do opt-in, you can do opt-out.

I don't know anything about Expression Engine or the customizations that Jim uses. But while the ability to do opt-out exists, Jim said that it's a resource issue. I can make assumptions on how the data is stored in the databases, and having a thousand people each with 5 or so bookmarks is probably very different from having a thousand people each with 150 opt-outs. And many people WILL have hundreds of opt-outs. I see a basketball thread, I opt out. That opt out setting is probably written to a database record. I'm never going to remove it because 2 seconds later it's out of my memory. I never see it on hot topics so I don't know when it goes away, so I never delete my opt out. I can see the queries taking a long time to return.

And also, note that you have a separate bookmarks section. Hot Topics is not filtered by your bookmarks.

Anyway, bookmark vs. delete under the current structure is one thing. Opt-in vs. opt-out by topic is another, and that's what Jim has said he is doing. Opt-in vs. delete thread are apples and oranges.

Those of you who participate in political thread and who are acting like there is going to be a big change to what you see on the site are overreacting. With the changes you will not only be able to discuss this stuff ad nauseum, but you'll be able to do it without getting shut down as much as you do now. At the same time the people who don't give a rats ass about these types of discussions, and want to avoid them, will be able to easily do it.

As for the site being different...I sure hope so. I hope the site has more voices, more visitors, and more and better content. I want more quality Red Sox links and commentary. I want more and better sabermetrics links and commentary. I want more and better links and commentary for every team and topic. I also want to better highlight the opinions and thoughts of our smartest members and spotlight the funniest of our topics. Simply, I want more and better *baseball* content.

I'm getting the impression that there an "opt-in to all" button that we'll be able to press. If that functionality exists, then I think after a brief adjustment, the site will be practically identical for the major players in the political discussions.

Am I off-base in suspecting that the problem is less "people talk about politics" and more "some people tend to engage in antisocial behavior when discussing politics, and defining/policing that behavior is a nightmare"?

Those of you who participate in political and are acting like there is going to be a big change to what you see on the site are overreacting.

Well, you're certainly doing a lot of loud announcing of a small change :-)

At the same time the people who don't give a rats ass about these types of discussions and want to avoid them will be able to easily do it.

People already can easily do it.

And do do it.

That's a good point, but wouldn't it only affect those who pull the trigger too quickly?

Yes. Since you were advocating for a trigger, I'd assumed you were planning to use it. If I was mistaken, I suppose we can go back to waiting for others who actually want that functionality to second your proposal.

It's kind of funny that we political posters are deemed the black sheep of BBTF; we generate tons of posts for the site.

That you generate tons of political posts on this site - not "for" this site - is a bug, not a feature.

If this were so clearly true, the political threads that Jim/Dan sent to the forums would have continued to thrive there without missing a beat. But instead, the threads fizzled and died a quick death.

That these discussions are so important to you that you provide tons of posts, but cease to do so when one extra click is added to the process, suggests the problem is with you, not the site structure. Jim hasn't been telling you to take your discussion off the site, just move it to somewhere more appropriate on the site - leaving the Hot Topics bar, and the googleable part of the site, less encumbered by off-topic heated political discussion. You and others instead choose to cease having the discussion. Why anyone thinks this is Jim's problem to solve, I don't know; yet it appears he is trying to solve it, as well as the problem for other users who wish the Hot Topics bar to be less cluttered by off-topic threads.

Also, I seem to recall Jim once having mentioned something along the lines of Harold's second point in #55.

So White Sox talk would be restricted to the White Sox page, and Cards' talk would be restricted to the Cards' page, et cetera and never the twain shall meet.

There will still be a main page, and a Hot Topics sidebar.

The only posts I generate for this site are my own. I would be horrified to think that anyone comes here to see what I am up to. I suck.

That these discussions are so important to you that you provide tons of posts, but cease to do so when one extra click is added to the process, suggests the problem is with you, not the site structure.

No. It's not "one extra click" at all. It's a different (and much worse) interface, on a different part of the site, with no "hot topics" connection.

Hence my first question of the thread, in post 10.

Why anyone thinks this is Jim's problem to solve, I don't know

As I said, most political threads start as baseball-related threads. But Repoz also posts threads -- such as the Luke Scott ones -- that Jim cannot sanely hope will not turn into political threads. Why post those kinds of threads, if political discussions are bad for the site? (I don't have the answer. As I said, it's not clear to me what's going on here.)

I only lurk here, but this seems like a really bad idea to me. Hot Topics is the heart of the site, and having threads not appear on there will kill them.

I'll also say that I was struck by Jim's comments about better links - I for one don't care at all about the links themselves. I click on the link of maybe 5% of the threads I read. It's the discussions that I read this for. If the links are twice as interesting but there are only half as many comments, that's a significant downgrade in my opinion.

Everybody is talking about the off-topic political threads, which can turn nasty, but among my favorites are the off topic pop culture (movies, music, TV) and history (military and otherwise) threads. These threads almost never become personal; are great fun to participate in; and are sometimes enlightening.

What happens to those threads?

I only lurk here, but this seems like a really bad idea to me. Hot Topics is the heart of the site, and having threads not appear on there will kill them.

I'll also say that I was struck by Jim's comments about better links - I for one don't care at all about the links themselves. I click on the link of maybe 5% of the threads I read. It's the discussions that I read this for. If the links are twice as interesting but there are only half as many comments, that's a significant downgrade in my opinion.

Agreed on both counts.

Will there be an easier way to refresh the mainsite on the iPhone? In the lounge it is simple. Here it blows.

Andy, my assumption of "resource hog" is not bandwidth, but computer processing power. It would significantly slow things down if every time Hot Topics was displayed, it had to be cross-referenced with my list of opt-outs. Especially when the list of opt-outs grows and grows since you're never likely to delete an opt-out (because you never see the thread).

If that's really the case, Greg, then I can see where Jim is coming from. I don't pretend to know anything about the technical issues involved.

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Those of you who participate in political thread and who are acting like there is going to be a big change to what you see on the site are overreacting. With the changes you will not only be able to discuss this stuff ad nauseum, but you'll be able to do it without getting shut down as much as you do now. At the same time the people who don't give a rats ass about these types of discussions, and want to avoid them, will be able to easily do it.

Of course as Ray and others have pointed out, they can easily avoid these threads now. Apparently that takes too much effort.

----------------------------------------------

I'm getting the impression that there an "opt-in to all" button that we'll be able to press. If that functionality exists, then I think after a brief adjustment, the site will be practically identical for the major players in the political discussions.

Part of the problem is that some of us are so completely unschooled in computer jargon that it's hard for us sometimes to understand exactly what these changes are going to mean in practice. I hope that all the surprises will be pleasant ones.

Am I off-base in suspecting that the problem is less "people talk about politics" and more "some people tend to engage in antisocial behavior when discussing politics, and defining/policing that behavior is a nightmare"?

I probably take part in as many political discussions as anyone, and sure, in some threads that sort of behavior will flare up. I find that it usually emanates from a tiny number of posters who hit and run, but who fortunately leave after one or two comments. And even with classic flame wars like that of David and Sam, I get the strong feeling that they're just woofing each other like pro wrestlers before their match begins.

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If this were so clearly true, the political threads that Jim/Dan sent to the forums would have continued to thrive there without missing a beat. But instead, the threads fizzled and died a quick death.

That these discussions are so important to you [Ray] that you provide tons of posts, but cease to do so when one extra click is added to the process, suggests the problem is with you, not the site structure. Jim hasn't been telling you to take your discussion off the site, just move it to somewhere more appropriate on the site - leaving the Hot Topics bar, and the googleable part of the site, less encumbered by off-topic heated political discussion. You and others instead choose to cease having the discussion. Why anyone thinks this is Jim's problem to solve, I don't know; yet it appears he is trying to solve it, as well as the problem for other users who wish the Hot Topics bar to be less cluttered by off-topic threads.

Just out of curiosity, do you think that other "hijackings" by off-topics such as food, music, religion and video games (just to name a few out of many) should be subject to the same restrictions as the political ones? Or do you think it's only politics that should be singled out for isolation?

P.S. That's not a rhetorical question. I have no idea what you might say.

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Everybody is talking about the off-topic political threads, which can turn nasty, but among my favorites are the off topic pop culture (movies, music, TV) and history (military and otherwise) threads. These threads almost never become personal; are great fun to participate in; and are sometimes enlightening.

What happens to those threads?

Pre-emptive coke to Srul. And it should be noted that the great majority of political threads rarely get "personal" in any real sense of the word. I've seen and been told about many friendly personal interactions between and among these so-called "personal" blood feuders, which makes it hard for me to take these "nasty" exchanges too much to heart. The nastiest comments I've seen in political threads all seem to come from the hit-and-run artists who never contribute anything of substance to any discussion.

I don't have a dog in this but what in the world do you think is going to be talked about in these baseball threads once the changes are made?

This isn't 2001 anymore guys. As someone else mentioned above you all accept sabermetrics or at least don't disagree with it to such a degree that you'll feel the need to fight over it in thread after thread. So what is left to talk about? "Kemp is BEAST-MODE!!", "Dusty Sucks!!" "Count da RINGZZZ".

I mean that will happen but it can't drive content day in day out. This is supposed to be the "thinking man's" baseball site and gets billed as such throughout the internet. Well, part of the cost one must pay to get that kind of site is stuff like "off-topic" content.

I only lurk here, but this seems like a really bad idea to me. Hot Topics is the heart of the site, and having threads not appear on there will kill them.

I'll also say that I was struck by Jim's comments about better links - I for one don't care at all about the links themselves. I click on the link of maybe 5% of the threads I read. It's the discussions that I read this for. If the links are twice as interesting but there are only half as many comments, that's a significant downgrade in my opinion.

I think that if everyone actually read the links (no, not the Murray Chass pinata posts, but the real ones), the quality of the discussions would rise considerably. I realize I'm in a minority when I say this.

But I do agree that the discussions are what make this site special. You have to be patient and able to pick the wheat from the chaff, but if you can do that you're often rewarded.

I don't have a dog in this but what in the world do you think is going to be talked about in these baseball threads once the changes are made?

This isn't 2001 anymore guys. As someone else mentioned above you all accept sabermetrics or at least don't disagree with it to such a degree that you'll feel the need to fight over it in thread after thread. So what is left to talk about? "Kemp is BEAST-MODE!!", "Dusty Sucks!!" "Count da RINGZZZ".

I mean that will happen but it can't drive content day in day out. This is supposed to be the "thinking man's" baseball site and gets billed as such throughout the internet. Well, part of the cost one must pay to get that kind of site is stuff like "off-topic" content.

In the words of the immortal Steve Treder: Well said.

I had interpreted it as 'opt out' (of a topic) v. 'delete' (viewing of a thread).
Anyway, if an 'opt in to all' button is available, that helps considerably.

Prefer the current model to what's proposed, but It's Jim's site and, as robin notes, it's both great and free...

And even with classic flame wars like that of David and Sam, I get the strong feeling that they're just woofing each other like pro wrestlers before their match begins.

Exactly. That's what people who don't post in the threads don't understand. I don't call people names or make ad hominems, but most of the "attacks and insults" in the political threads are just people who know each other having fun with each other. It's like... a community.

And why are "attacks and insults" bad for political threads, but totally cool when people, say, mock someone for thinking that Ichiro isn't a Hall of Famer? Somehow, those threads manage to go on for many posts.

I've seen and been told about many friendly personal interactions between and among these so-called "personal" blood feuders, which makes it hard for me to take these "nasty" exchanges too much to heart.

Yep.

I don't have a dog in this but what in the world do you think is going to be talked about in these baseball threads once the changes are made?

This isn't 2001 anymore guys. As someone else mentioned above you all accept sabermetrics or at least don't disagree with it to such a degree that you'll feel the need to fight over it in thread after thread. So what is left to talk about? "Kemp is BEAST-MODE!!", "Dusty Sucks!!" "Count da RINGZZZ".

I mean that will happen but it can't drive content day in day out. This is supposed to be the "thinking man's" baseball site and gets billed as such throughout the internet. Well, part of the cost one must pay to get that kind of site is stuff like "off-topic" content.

And yep. The primary driver of the site seems to be the discussions and the community aspect, not the links.

Political discussions always get passionate, especially the longer they go. It's the nature of adversarial exchanges. If you don't want that to happen, then ban them entirely and see your website wither away or transmogrify into something else. The history of political discussion almost everywhere (here certainly) should convince anyone that political discussions always skirt a pistols at dawn moment. Pretending otherwise after so much has been presented to the contrary is almost the definition of someone out of touch with reality. Moreover, as has been said, most of that is just gorilla dust-tossing and posturing. Which in itself is both edifying and entertaining.

And yep. The primary driver of the site seems to be the discussions and the community aspect, not the links.

This might sound myopic, but are there even 20 articles about baseball really worth reading in a given day?

I subscribe to Fangraphs and The Book Blog via my RSS reader. Fangraphs posts maybe 10 articles a day, and they're lucky if one is interesting. Tango is more like a commentator, but occasionally one of those is really interesting. I don't read Hardball times every day (because they truncate articles for RSS), but I rarely see things there that really gobsmack me.

The last article about baseball that I can recall that really changed the way I thought about things was Mike Fast's piece on catcher framing (and subsequent follow-up). The rest of it is mostly day-to-day churn.

And why are "attacks and insults" bad for political threads, but totally cool when people, say, mock someone for thinking that Ichiro isn't a Hall of Famer? Somehow, those threads manage to go on for many posts.

I think the nasty posts are always bad (in the sense that they drive away some good discussion and in the sense that new users are likely to find them intimidating). That isn't to say that, as an end user, I'd do anything about it other than community self-policing, but I can see why other people might be less tolerant.

This might sound myopic, but are there even 20 articles about baseball really worth reading in a given day?

Nope, and probably not even 20 in a week.

And on a different note I would like to add that I think it is incredibly destructive to a site billing itself as a site for the thinking fan to have threads automatically time out after a certain amount of time. If you want research then it has to be open ended. Plain and simple.

This might sound myopic, but are there even 20 articles about baseball really worth reading in a given day?

I subscribe to Fangraphs and The Book Blog via my RSS reader. Fangraphs posts maybe 10 articles a day, and they're lucky if one is interesting. Tango is more like a commentator, but occasionally one of those is really interesting. I don't read Hardball times every day (because they truncate articles for RSS), but I rarely see things there that really gobsmack me.

I think one thing Jim is overlooking is that baseball fans in general, and BBTF readers in particular, are so much more knowledgeable about baseball in the year 2012 that there really are few "articles about baseball" that are truly worth reading to these people. In the past, we could look to, say, Rob Neyer's pieces as one of the relatively few pieces out there, at least in the mainstream, that were enlightening. Now, there are a million people doing Rob Neyer, and most people here could do it if they wanted to.

That's why the discussions here are the site's true value, IMO. I would much rather read something that, say, Ron Johnson writes in a random thread than read 99% of the articles linked to here. That's what interests me about the site. And if those discussions are now going to be less accessed by people, that's a huge problem, even if I am able to maintain complete access myself.

The "better articles" Jim is hoping to link to from the site are a unicorn.

Bring out the gimp.

I have a busy day planned today so I will have to respond with more info later. I will say that some of you have only a small understanding of what drives traffic and pays for this site. Farrrrrrr more people come to the site to lurk and click on links than come to the site to comment. That doesn't mean that I don't value the people that comment here. I appreciate their time and participation very much. It just means I need to do my best to continue to provide the best site to better satisfy the needs of *all* the site's visitors.

To be clear...for the people who regularly participate in the political threads the experience here *will be improved* not worsened. After selecting your Hot Topic preference, you won't notice a difference.

Ray, sorry but you don't have any idea what you are talking about. There are a lot of interesting articles on the web that don't get posted here. This is especially true if someone is looking for topic-specific links. Getting more good topic-specific links entered into the system will certainly raise the bar on the front page.

Regarding the ability to see "all the topics", by default the front page will show links from all topics. Your customized homepage will display the topics/micros you subscribe to. Additionally, by subscribing the links to your favorite micros will prominently be displayed at the top of the page.

I think there are plenty of good articles on a daily basis. Yesterday for example there were a couple of good articles on WEEI.com about what the Red Sox should do with Dustin Pedroia's absence and why Daniel Bard's start the other night was encouraging. Boston.com had an interesting little piece on tryouts for the new PA guy at Fenway.

That's just one team and two sources. The articles were not particularly earth shattering but I think they would have had interest to Red Sox fans and the first two would have had some interest to general baseball fans. I didn't submit them because I didn't think they had enough global interest to warrant a posting but with the new team specific BBTF I might have. I imagine every team in baseball has 3-4 articles a day that probably are of interest to its fans and most direct competitors but not to the baseball world at large.

Will there be an easier way to refresh the mainsite on the iPhone? In the lounge it is simple. Here it blows.

I have no problems with the refresh on the iPhone (or iPad).

Ray, sorry but you don't have any idea what you are talking about. There are a lot of interesting articles on the web that don't get posted here. This is especially true if someone is looking for topic-specific links. Getting more good topic-specific links entered into the system will certainly raise the bar on the front page.

I've been agreeing with Ray on pretty much everything he's been saying on this thread, but here I think Jim's right.

OTOH there's also this: I haven't found any correlation at all between the quality of the links and the quality of the discussions. I noticed this almost immediately when I first started visiting Clutch Hits, and it hasn't improved over time.

In the best of both worlds, we'd have more good links, and more people would take part in discussing them. But I wouldn't necessarily count on it. To the extent that the anti-political comments have a point, I think that the problem isn't with political discussions per se, it's that too many people are simply unwilling to consider new information on the fly, and when that new information conflicts with their worldview, they flail out against it rather than try to deal with it. It's bad enough when that new information is coming from another Primate, but at least he can press the issue and sometimes succeed. But when the source of that new information is coming from a third party, it often simply becomes nothing but a pinata.

And I repeat: You see this problem every bit as much in non-political threads as you do in political threads, and I don't this these pending changes really address it.

To be clear...for the people who regularly participate in the political threads the experience here *will be improved* not worsened. After selecting your Hot Topic preference, you won't notice a difference.

Is this really true, though, for any thread? It might at first glance look the same to me after selecting the preference, but fewer people will be accessing/commenting, since they now have to actively unlock the doors to get in there. Or maybe I have this wrong. But I don't see how you can roll out sweeping changes and then say the site will look the same if people who make a certain selection want it to. Isn't the whole point of the site redesign to make significant changes?

the people griping are the people who know that the audience both regular and causual for their constant bleating is about to be diminished.

boo f*cking hoo

this site needs fresh blood and a bunch of hysterical 40 year olds mucking up the place with their nonsense keeps that from happening.

i will offer the caveat that if matt is providing feedback that should be taken seriously

the rest? scr&w'em

Yeah, it's only those 40 years olds that are mucking it up.

I first came to BBTF because it was for the "thinking fan" - the comments on ESPN and other mainstream sites are really just drivel and do not provide anything that you wouldn't get by transcribing the conversations of 10 year olds at MLB game on a school trip. The uniting interest here is baseball - not politics, the environment, science or religion, so I find the off-topic discussions to be very valuable because you are guaranteed to hear the opinions of (mostly) intelligent people with varying viewpoints.

I guess since I have no role in the operation of the site I'll accept whatever Jim decides, but I too would rather see an opt-out than an opt-in.

As has been noted several times above it's Jim's site and he can run it how he wants. BBTF is advertised as being for the thinking fan, someone who should have the capability of clicking onto a particular thread, or not. Apparently that is not the case and we are going to have some of our thinking done for us in the future. I would have a much easier time accepting that the changes would be for the better if I still didn't have to log in every time I wanted to make a post.

When I asked about this a couple of months ago, one of the know-it-alls here told me it wasn't going to happen. Well I guess he was wrong, and thank goodness.

Haaaaa le lu jah. Haaaaa le lu jah. Ha le-ey luu jaaah.

Quoted for truth.

The people griping are the people who know that the audience both regular and causual for their constant bleating is about to be diminished. Boo f*cking hoo. This site needs fresh blood and a bunch of hysterical 40 year olds mucking up the place with their nonsense keeps that from happening.

Quoted for more truth. Who knows how many actual baseball fans who could have been solid contributors have been driven from the site over the last several years by the endless barrage of garbage, about 90% of which is generated by a fairly small cadre of monomaniacs.

plain joe

what chat forum doesn't require a log in of some kind? some use facebook, some use captcha, some use their own approach

with the spam out there it's a must or seems to be

what site that is not an informal blog does not have log in of some kind?

I will say that if what drives traffic and pays for this site are the lurkers that click on links and not comment then I don't really know why there is a need to change what actually drives comments. It would seem to me to be two separate issues concerning two different audiences. It would also seem to me that it is possible to create a system that gets more links put up onto the page without having to do anything about what people comment on.

Secondly, there seems to a concern about what appears on the side-bar and I'm not really understanding why the side bar can't simply be lengthened.

Ray, sorry but you don't have any idea what you are talking about. There are a lot of interesting articles on the web that don't get posted here. This is especially true if someone is looking for topic-specific links. Getting more good topic-specific links entered into the system will certainly raise the bar on the front page.

I've been agreeing with Ray on pretty much everything he's been saying on this thread, but here I think Jim's right.

I think the links provide a nice global view of what is going on in MLB on a given day.

I guess the important question here is, why are the lurkers lurking? Are they lurking primarily to see those links, or primarily to see the discussions? My guess would be the latter.

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the people griping are the people who know that the audience both regular and causual for their constant bleating is about to be diminished.

boo f*cking hoo

Harveys, this doesn't make any sense. In any discussion, people post to participate in the discussion with those who are participating in the discussion -- not with lurkers who aren't participating. And if the audience is about to go down, that means that there are lurkers who were reading because they were interested. If they're not interested, why are they reading? It's a solution in search of a problem.

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Quoted for more truth. Who knows how many actual baseball fans who could have been solid contributors have been driven from the site over the last several years by the endless barrage of garbage, about 90% of which is generated by a fairly small cadre of monomaniacs.

Yes, who knows? But the real question is not how many people have been driven away by the current setup, but is whether that number is more or less than the number of people who will be driven away by the future setup.

Mind you I think change can be good. If it's an overall improvement and is addressing actual problems.