Thread: 5 months of.... this?

Originally Posted by SpiritofVodkaDave

Also, I never ripped TD or what they are doing here I just was suggesting they should try to make the forums more discussion based and less cluttered with articles in the forums, especially articles which have no real substance, so your snarky suggestion of "skipping TD altogether" is a little ridiculous.

Yeah, this is an actual problem. Some of the articles are 4-6 paragraphs that could have better been said in one or two sentences to generate discussion. It has gotten to the point that I don't even click on articles because they have, by and large, been pretty bare bones of content. To me, articles for the sake of articles aren't going to promote the forum - good articles will. And sometimes, when the content is a bit more dry, it's ok just to wait until there is more fodder for thought. The problem got more and more evident as the season bled out and it's a friggin epidemic of worthless articles these days.

Originally Posted by TheLeviathan

Originally Posted by SpiritofVodkaDave

Also, I never ripped TD or what they are doing here I just was suggesting they should try to make the forums more discussion based and less cluttered with articles in the forums, especially articles which have no real substance, so your snarky suggestion of "skipping TD altogether" is a little ridiculous.

Yeah, this is an actual problem. Some of the articles are 4-6 paragraphs that could have better been said in one or two sentences to generate discussion. It has gotten to the point that I don't even click on articles because they have, by and large, been pretty bare bones of content. To me, articles for the sake of articles aren't going to promote the forum - good articles will. And sometimes, when the content is a bit more dry, it's ok just to wait until there is more fodder for thought. The problem got more and more evident as the season bled out and it's a friggin epidemic of worthless articles these days.

Exactly, I appreciate people want to break into blogging or whatever, just keep in mind that you often only get one shot at many readers, and if your first or majority of articles are lacking substance/boring you basically have lost that reader forever.

I employ 7 writers for my "day" job, 3 of which are full time. Myself and my partner have told them this multiple times, we'd much rather have our writers pumping out 5 great articles a day then 10 mediocre articles.

Originally Posted by PseudoSABR

Smerf, I'm right there with you, but it's important to recognize this is TD's first full-fledged offseason. Inexperienced posters are going to be trigger happy; let's face it, many of us have been spoiled by the intellectual etiquette of some Twins fans over the last decade. If intelligent people keep posting (and even taking initiative), the rest will catch on.

Is the assumption that new people here don't know baseball when they get here and therefore aren't intellectual enough at the beginning? If I'm misunderstanding your post, and some other's posts saying things along those same lines, please let me know. Cause some of us were just posting elsewhere for many years and heard about this great place and came over.

Originally Posted by snepp

Originally Posted by Brock Beauchamp

In the Division Series, I was cheering for Cincinnati, Oakland, Baltimore, and Washington. It was a pretty awful baseball week for me.

You weren't the only one, I drew a big 0-fer as well.

Me too. Many of my friends that don't post on TD were cheering for the same teams as well.

Originally Posted by SpiritofVodkaDave

Also, I never ripped TD or what they are doing here I just was suggesting they should try to make the forums more discussion based and less cluttered with articles in the forums, especially articles which have no real substance, so your snarky suggestion of "skipping TD altogether" is a little ridiculous.

I honestly didn't mean my suggestion that you skip TD in November to be snarky, though looking back and reading it I can understand that it reads that way. I apologize.

I was just pointing out that in the pre-TD days, the TwinsCentric guys have followed up the release of their GM Handbook with "blueprints" for fixing the Twins in the offseason and have encouraged other writers to come up with our own blueprints, as well. In other words, everyone putting out their own "ten point plan," which is what you indicated you didn't want to see. Those things, and the discussions they lead to, have historically dominated much of the discussion in our respective separate blogs during November. So my comment was intended to be more "tongue in cheek" than "snark," but regardless, I apologize for the tone.

Originally Posted by Badsmerf

Are we really going to go through 5 months of pulling random names and trade ideas out of our asses? I don't even want to read on topic like that. Baseball is so difficult to guess on. Once FA opens and things start to happen I can understand it. But man, this is going to be a long winter if this continues.

On a scale of 1 to 10 reading about potential trade ideas at this time of the year is about a 2 for me, so I feel your pain. The only thing less interesting to me is reading threads about who's going to be in the Twins starting lineup in 2015. Talk about a difficult guess and a waste of electrons.

Originally Posted by ThePuck

Originally Posted by PseudoSABR

Smerf, I'm right there with you, but it's important to recognize this is TD's first full-fledged offseason. Inexperienced posters are going to be trigger happy; let's face it, many of us have been spoiled by the intellectual etiquette of some Twins fans over the last decade. If intelligent people keep posting (and even taking initiative), the rest will catch on.

Is the assumption that new people here don't know baseball when they get here and therefore aren't intellectual enough at the beginning? If I'm misunderstanding your post, and some other's posts saying things along those same lines, please let me know. Cause some of us were just posting elsewhere for many years and heard about this great place and came over.

That is not it at all. A draw-back of less than casual fans is they assume players can be swapped like RBI Baseball trades. I'm certainly not calling anyone out in particular in this thread (dave, i gave you **** about DeRosa because I've given you **** every offseason for the last 4 years). Why it is said that "new" posters are guilty of this is because they haven't spent enough time on forums to know that it takes more than one team needs a pitcher and one needs a hitter so lets swap! Most on here know that.

I don't mean to be elitist about this, and am not calling individual posters or threads out. I'm just saying lets collectively bring good ideas and non-redundant topics to discussion. People can post what they want and talk about what they want so it shouldn't make much difference what I want anyway, just sayin.

Originally Posted by Badsmerf

That is not it at all. A draw-back of less than casual fans is they assume players can be swapped like RBI Baseball trades. I'm certainly not calling anyone out in particular in this thread (dave, i gave you **** about DeRosa because I've given you **** every offseason for the last 4 years). Why it is said that "new" posters are guilty of this is because they haven't spent enough time on forums to know that it takes more than one team needs a pitcher and one needs a hitter so lets swap! Most on here know that.

I don't mean to be elitist about this, and am not calling individual posters or threads out. I'm just saying lets collectively bring good ideas and non-redundant topics to discussion. People can post what they want and talk about what they want so it shouldn't make much difference what I want anyway, just sayin.

I appreciate the way you feel in regards to what I said, but you didn't post anything that would suggest you felt that way...at least I didn't see it. I quoted PseudoSABR's post to you, because his seemed to suggest that new people here don't know baseball when they get here and therefore aren't intellectual to understand the nuances of the game on and off the field. Some others seemed to agree.

While I can certainly appreciate the fact that most of you seasoned posters on this site have gotten comfortable with each other's level of knowledge of the game, I'm not sure new people coming in can't be right there as well.

I may have misunderstood his post, but it doesn't seem that way...and that kind of thinking can turn new people off.

Sign Conseco!

Originally Posted by ALessKosherScott

Sign Conseco!

plz start new thread jewscott

having trouble finding the new thread button. Will someone create a JJ Hardy should never have been traded and i miss wilson ramos thread?

also, matt capps sucks.

Originally Posted by ThePuck

Originally Posted by Badsmerf

That is not it at all. A draw-back of less than casual fans is they assume players can be swapped like RBI Baseball trades. I'm certainly not calling anyone out in particular in this thread (dave, i gave you **** about DeRosa because I've given you **** every offseason for the last 4 years). Why it is said that "new" posters are guilty of this is because they haven't spent enough time on forums to know that it takes more than one team needs a pitcher and one needs a hitter so lets swap! Most on here know that.

I don't mean to be elitist about this, and am not calling individual posters or threads out. I'm just saying lets collectively bring good ideas and non-redundant topics to discussion. People can post what they want and talk about what they want so it shouldn't make much difference what I want anyway, just sayin.

I appreciate the way you feel in regards to what I said, but you didn't post anything that would suggest you felt that way...at least I didn't see it. I quoted PseudoSABR's post to you, because his seemed to suggest that new people here don't know baseball when they get here and therefore aren't intellectual to understand the nuances of the game on and off the field. Some others seemed to agree.

While I can certainly appreciate the fact that most of you seasoned posters on this site have gotten comfortable with each other's level of knowledge of the game, I'm not sure new people coming in can't be right there as well.

I may have misunderstood his post, but it doesn't seem that way...and that kind of thinking can turn new people off.

I meant people new to talking about baseball. That might not be you. But plenty of knowledgeable people can be horrible people to interact with on a message board. I think that if you want people to take you seriously its important to phrase good ideas in a way that elicit discussion and also show some thoughtful restraint. But that's just my two cents.

And again, just because someone is new to the site a) doesn't mean they don't know about baseball and b) that they don't know how to talk about baseball.

Originally Posted by PseudoSABR

Originally Posted by ThePuck

Originally Posted by Badsmerf

That is not it at all. A draw-back of less than casual fans is they assume players can be swapped like RBI Baseball trades. I'm certainly not calling anyone out in particular in this thread (dave, i gave you **** about DeRosa because I've given you **** every offseason for the last 4 years). Why it is said that "new" posters are guilty of this is because they haven't spent enough time on forums to know that it takes more than one team needs a pitcher and one needs a hitter so lets swap! Most on here know that.

I don't mean to be elitist about this, and am not calling individual posters or threads out. I'm just saying lets collectively bring good ideas and non-redundant topics to discussion. People can post what they want and talk about what they want so it shouldn't make much difference what I want anyway, just sayin.

I appreciate the way you feel in regards to what I said, but you didn't post anything that would suggest you felt that way...at least I didn't see it. I quoted PseudoSABR's post to you, because his seemed to suggest that new people here don't know baseball when they get here and therefore aren't intellectual to understand the nuances of the game on and off the field. Some others seemed to agree.

While I can certainly appreciate the fact that most of you seasoned posters on this site have gotten comfortable with each other's level of knowledge of the game, I'm not sure new people coming in can't be right there as well.

I may have misunderstood his post, but it doesn't seem that way...and that kind of thinking can turn new people off.

I meant people new to talking about baseball. That might not be you. But plenty of knowledgeable people can be horrible people to interact with on a message board. I think that if you want people to take you seriously its important to phrase good ideas in a way that elicit discussion and also show some thoughtful restraint. But that's just my two cents.

And again, just because someone is new to the site a) doesn't mean they don't know about baseball and b) that they don't know how to talk about baseball.

I do think some teams decisions or lack thereof can be interesting. Seeing the same trade talk all the time is not. I certainly am not the most knowledgable on the subjects, but try to understand what teams are looking for and what they need.
There are still new interesting issues all the time which can affect the Twins. Example Jim Bowden was on ESPN radio when I was coming home after 6 tonight and claimed the Yankees absolutly had to cut ties with A-Rod, whether or not they got salary relief as the only item by trading him. Twins couldn't use him, but it would set a chain reaction of moving pieces(or is he done)?

Originally Posted by The Greatest Poster Alive

also, matt capps sucks.

---OK but first, we should have another thread full of racially-tinged diatribes about Nishioka.

Originally Posted by The Greatest Poster Alive

JJ Hardy should never have been traded and i miss wilson ramos

This.

One suggestion:

Why not have people start blogging about other Minnesota professional sports?

There aren't many good places to discuss the Vikings on the web, Purplepride is decent but the forum is slow, Rubechat is a cesspool, I bet if we got two-three people writing about the Vikings that could become very interesting, ditto with Wild Hockey and the T-Wolves.

Originally Posted by Brock Beauchamp

In the Division Series, I was cheering for Cincinnati, Oakland, Baltimore, and Washington. It was a pretty awful baseball week for me.

You gotta admit, though, it was fun to watch, even if your favorite teams lost. Taken together, with all of them going 5 games and given the (one-time) format change, this was the most interesting round of divisional series I've seen in recent years.

Originally Posted by SpiritofVodkaDave

One suggestion:

Why not have people start blogging about other Minnesota professional sports?

There aren't many good places to discuss the Vikings on the web, Purplepride is decent but the forum is slow, Rubechat is a cesspool, I bet if we got two-three people writing about the Vikings that could become very interesting, ditto with Wild Hockey and the T-Wolves.

Want to sell me your Christian Ponder fan blog?

Originally Posted by Brock Beauchamp

Want to sell me your Christian Ponder fan blog?

Well, if we let him do that, it would make the rest of the articles look like award-winning stuff.