Rec'ing Ball Madness

by haildablazer on Apr 16, 2009 5:40 PM PDT

The last few days has seen an interesting phenomenon. I am, of course, talking about the ever popular "Thank You" threads. It started out innocently enough, but then something happened.

(Big booming announcer voice) HUMAN EGO!!!!!!!!

It was actually a little surprising at first, but there was a lot of venom on the BEdge on this one. Once the volume of the posts increased (parodies and serious ones) it started to cloud the whole fanpost bar. I'm actually surprised D & B didn't step in. It's not that anything was particularly out of hand except that the sheer number of these types of posts soon dominated the whole sidebar. This would normaly not be such a bad thing, but oftentimes the "thank you" posts were vague, silly, uninsightful or just plain bad. There were some not too bad, but really. Enough was enough.

On both sides.

I did the best I could to avoid clicking on any of them (I think the Nate one and the JD one) but for a few days there was good content being rushed off the page by Rec Hogs. We had a Rec'ing Ball at Blazers edge.

I know that we are all very grateful, but the season is not over yet. I really think we had some Premature Rec'ulation here, that would have been better served once the Blazers are done with the playoffs.

Anyone else with me on this? Let's have one more Rec'ing Ball!!!

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Comments

First

Book it. FTW. Classy. Epic Fail.

There. Those demons have been exorcised.

I know less than half of you half as well as I should like, and I like less than half of you half as well as you deserve.

by haildablazer on Apr 16, 2009 5:41 PM PDT reply actions 1 recs

Man...

No love from Dave or Brian on EITHER ONE of my Recced posts. I smell a comcaspiracy!!!

I know less than half of you half as well as I should like, and I like less than half of you half as well as you deserve.

by haildablazer on Apr 16, 2009 10:57 PM PDT up reply actions

I.... HATE..... THE.... NO..... EDIT...... THING.

BEN.
BEN.
BEN.
BEN.
BEN.
BEN.
BEN.
BEN.
BEN.
BEN.

I know less than half of you half as well as I should like, and I like less than half of you half as well as you deserve.

by haildablazer on Apr 16, 2009 10:58 PM PDT up reply actions

haha... Brian... classic... epic... pwnd...

by tominrehab on Apr 16, 2009 10:59 PM PDT up reply actions 1 recs

Sigh

Meh.

I know less than half of you half as well as I should like, and I like less than half of you half as well as you deserve.

by haildablazer on Apr 16, 2009 11:01 PM PDT up reply actions

I recced you, btw.

You win some, you make-people-laugh-at-your-ineptitued some

I know less than half of you half as well as I should like, and I like less than half of you half as well as you deserve.

by haildablazer on Apr 16, 2009 11:03 PM PDT up reply actions

I didn't have a problem with the content of the thank you posts but

what bothered me more was the quantity, which was just too much to try to keep up with. Posts aren’t staying in my sidebar for more than 10 hours or so, which makes it really difficult to follow what’s going on at this site. I even increased the amount of stories I view in my sidebar.

There are so many posts on this site that I think Dave and Ben should consider lengthening the minimum word count for a fanpost. Something in the neighborhood of 300 words would be nice, there are way too many short posts. If all the “Thank You” posts were written as one long post instead of a million 100 word posts, this wouldn’t have been a problem.

by trailblazersfan on Apr 16, 2009 5:56 PM PDT reply actions 1 recs

yeah

this was kind of my point.

It’s not that the content was overall “bad” it was just pointless. And it served to shove good stuff off the main page.

I just found out today you can set how many you want to see. Ah well, any day you don’t learn something is a waste.

Just one thank you Junk Drawer, with people reccing the good stuff would have been fine.

Maybe a couple JD’s. I dunno. This was just a cyberassault of mediocrity.

I know less than half of you half as well as I should like, and I like less than half of you half as well as you deserve.

by haildablazer on Apr 16, 2009 6:02 PM PDT up reply actions 1 recs

+1

This was just a cyberassault of mediocrity.

I’ll bet you dollars to donuts they aren’t done yet…

Pontiff of the Pryz for Prez Posse...

by timbo on Apr 16, 2009 7:16 PM PDT up reply actions

I'm with you on this.

I’m debating when to post my season stat team growth charts, since I’m pretty worried they’ll disappear instantly. The 20 recent ranposts section only extends to 18 hours old and the 5 rec’ed fanposts to 19 hours old. It would be very frustrating if all that work just got pushed right on down.

"We really don't reference the rulebook." ~Joe Borgia, NBA VP of referee operations, to Henry Abbot regarding the calling (or lack thereof) of traveling.

by postup on Apr 16, 2009 6:03 PM PDT reply actions

That's what happened to me last night

with my Portland VS Houston post.

I posted it at about midnight, and by 7:00 in the morning, it was gone. That’s just not right. Fortunately I got the recs (by begging, ugh) but that should just not happen.

I know less than half of you half as well as I should like, and I like less than half of you half as well as you deserve.

by haildablazer on Apr 16, 2009 6:09 PM PDT up reply actions

I remember all the posts leading up to the trade deadline duplicating each other or suggesting deals bordering on implausible

To the point of “no more trade talk, why don’t you like our team” meta-posts and temporary “trade talk drawers” to avoid bumping stuff too quickly off the fanpost sidebar since many people have that set to just 10 or 20. Like all trends it goes in waves and disappears again. I skipped plenty of the “thank you posts” but participated in many trade talk posts, so I can’t say I’m not guilty just because I enjoy one thing more than the other.

It also depends on how the bloggers want to deal with those: Some blog authors (e.g. Matt over at Blogabull) quickly get disgruntled by duplicates and repetitive things in the fanposts and fanshots and delete some while promoting others even to the front page to create a common point for discussion. Dave usually doesn’t, and instead writes a guideline how he and Ben would like to see things handled every once in a while. I think I remember he did comment in one of the “thank you” posts that he was fine with them, and would prefer to see people avoid them when they don’t like them instead of posting snide remarks.

Greg Oden = Robert Parish (HOF, 4x NBA champion, 9x NBA All-Star). The only other rookie with more than 500 points, 400 rebounds, and 65 blocks in under 1400 minutes played. Since 1946.

by Norsktroll on Apr 16, 2009 6:21 PM PDT reply actions

True

But there was an effort by B & D to contain it.

I’m not saying this is as bad by any means, and it really didn’t affect my particular post, but sometimes I don’t have great access to the internet, and I’ll miss something that maybe I would have liked.

I know less than half of you half as well as I should like, and I like less than half of you half as well as you deserve.

by haildablazer on Apr 16, 2009 6:30 PM PDT up reply actions

yeah but after you saw thank you sergio and thank you LMA

you would have thought they were over so no need to regulate,
then come the Thank You Guys Who Mop Up the Sweaty Court posts.

by tevisthe4th on Apr 16, 2009 6:58 PM PDT up reply actions

I think I remember he did comment in one of the "thank you" posts that he was fine with them, and would prefer to see people avoid them when they don’t like them instead of posting snide remarks.

He did, in the “No Thank You” post. I stayed out of the threads… if Dave was cool with it, I felt no need to argue it.

This has been a trying few weeks for reading BE fanposts. I never figured out why the Thank You post couldn’t have just been updated daily for a new player, with its time stamp reset, to move it back to the top of the recs until all the players were finished. Then it would stay rec’d, and not overwhelm the site. Best of both worlds, it would seem.

I also appreciate that there’s no hard and fast rules for reccing posts here. But there are days I wish there was a rule… Rec for “This content is interesting”, but do not rec just because you think “I agree”. But I completely understand that’s just a “me” thing, and I’m different from most folks.

It’s cool though. BE is a great place. I’m just talking about a tiny detail inside the much more fun bigger picture that is BE. They do a great job running the site here.

by Timmay! on Apr 16, 2009 6:34 PM PDT up reply actions

Well

I think I remember he did comment in one of the “thank you” posts that he was fine with them, and would prefer to see people avoid them when they don’t like them instead of posting snide remarks.

That’s exactly what I did. And now that they seem to have subsided (maybe they’re like hiccups) there might be one or two more, but I think the storm has passed.

I guess this is my attempt at a reasoned response.

I know less than half of you half as well as I should like, and I like less than half of you half as well as you deserve.

by haildablazer on Apr 16, 2009 7:43 PM PDT up reply actions

Personally, I think it's about time for another front page article from Dave

delineating what type of content should be a fanpost/fanshot/comment. I know I don’t have a whole ton of room to judge, being a relative noob as far as active posting/commenting, but it feels like I’m seeing a lot of newer usernames responsible for many of these posts that should be comments in another post instead. I understand if some of these people haven’t realized that no matter where you write something on BE, it’s going to get read. I generally stay out of the JD, in an attempt to maintain some degree of focus at work, but aside from that, I’d say I read about 80% of the stuff that gets posted, which I’d say is fairly representative of a regular BE poster. There’s almost no need to put any content that’s at all responding to another post in anything but a comment to that post. It will get read.

What I’d kind of like to see(not sure if it’s possible with SBNation), would be some sort of automatic moderation where a post gets removed from the sidebar if it doesn’t have a couple recs or at least some minimum number of comments within a time period, say 8 hours of being posted. The traffic and participation here is sufficient that any post with solid content will pick up a couple recs or plenty of comments within that time, and it would keep shorter posts that don’t stimulate any debate from pushing worthy posts off the front page sooner.

by Royster on Apr 16, 2009 6:54 PM PDT up reply actions

Maybe he can just set an automated one?

Once a month?

I know less than half of you half as well as I should like, and I like less than half of you half as well as you deserve.

by haildablazer on Apr 16, 2009 10:33 PM PDT up reply actions

I don't think it's that much of a problem

just seems to be something that crops up from time to time. I mean, I really wouldn’t mind just copying and pasting whatever it was last time. Very little effort on Dave’s part, but I think it would go a long way.

by Royster on Apr 16, 2009 11:23 PM PDT up reply actions

true

not much of a solution, but maybe just a good thing to have.

Even if we just use it as a joke after a VERY short time.

I know less than half of you half as well as I should like, and I like less than half of you half as well as you deserve.

by haildablazer on Apr 16, 2009 11:33 PM PDT up reply actions

"THANK YOU AUTOMATED RULE BOT!!!!!!"

I can see it now.

I know less than half of you half as well as I should like, and I like less than half of you half as well as you deserve.

by haildablazer on Apr 17, 2009 12:07 AM PDT up reply actions

what's the point

the people who make stupid posts don’t read those or are too new to read those anyway.

by tominrehab on Apr 16, 2009 11:00 PM PDT up reply actions

I think we all need to remember that Dave and Ben work for us

Without our love and adoration, this place would be a ghost town.

"The brownies,'' Fernandez said after the game. "The brownies are good for me to make three-points.''

by tominhawaii on Apr 16, 2009 6:59 PM PDT up reply actions

Your most entertaining posts

Are the ones where the reader needs to stop for just a second and say “Is he serious, or doing parody?”

Keep up the good work!

by Timmay! on Apr 16, 2009 7:05 PM PDT up reply actions

My opinion: those should have been shut down by the boss after #2. They became formulaic and insipid and clogged the sidebar for no good reason.

But my sniping about them got deleted at least once, so I presume the boss liked ’em, for whatever reason.

His site. Whatever…

Pontiff of the Pryz for Prez Posse...

by timbo on Apr 16, 2009 7:14 PM PDT reply actions

el jefe del jefe's?

I know less than half of you half as well as I should like, and I like less than half of you half as well as you deserve.

by haildablazer on Apr 16, 2009 7:43 PM PDT up reply actions

rec'd

lol

Woof

by Charles Barkley McLovin on Apr 16, 2009 7:17 PM PDT reply actions

We could complain that people like things too often.

Or it might be time to ask Dave to up the Rec’s needed once again. Remember when it was five?

I’m thinking fifteen is going to be a good number for the playoffs and through draft day. But over the summer, it might need to be lowered to seven again, lest we have the same conversation up there for a month.

Of all the things that can be expressed in the printed word – love, hate, fear, joy – true humor is the one that is the most difficult of all. Sarcasm, for example, is an art of delicate subtlety. Yet too many people wield it as a bulldozer – loud, smelly, ugly, and destructive – and think they are being funny.

by T Darkstar on Apr 16, 2009 8:07 PM PDT reply actions