Have we as fans really lost sight (corrected) of the main goal?

Every time I see the bashing start, everything that goes through my mind is pretty much what you typed out. Well played sir.

We get posts like this once or twice a year. It happens with a real passionate fanbase, in my opinion.

I think discussion’s great. I have two brief points you touched on, Tim.

First, Lee & Hoffpauir are a great example of statistics versus gut feelings, old versus young(er) players and discussion topics. This is what makes baseball is so brilliant; that everything can be analyzed to the Nth degree with a variety of methods – scouting reports, qualitative and quantitative data, gut emotions, etc. What I do not stand for is blatantly ignorant comments with no evidence or suggestion of fact behind them. I’m fine with using qualitative data to analyze a position battle, but when someone comments with no such reasoning behind it, I’m gonna ask or call out that person to clarify.

Second, I do think I reserve the right to NOT like a player, however. I didn’t want GameBoard this off season (still don’t), and I am very hesitant to trust Micah at all. Just because I don’t like a player on our team doesn’t mean I’m rooting any less for them to succeed or perform well. I think it’s silly to think that being a Cubs’ fan requires 100% blind love for everything the organization does and stands for.

Dan

I don’t really see a lot of bickering and hostility around here, but it has increased with (I’m assuming) the partnership with Yahoo!, which probably pipelined a lot of new fans. As a guy that’s been on BCB for quite some time, it took me awhile to adjust to the influx of new members. Some times we have to revisit “How to Post 101”, how to act respectful, etc. There have been a larger number of trolls, fire-starters, or just cranky people than last year, I believe. Last year’s discussion was Riot’s full-time gig, this year it’s Lee & Hoffpauir. So it goes.

…as long as it’s civil. Bottom line is, this is a baseball blog — it’s a place for baseball fans to talk baseball with other baseball fans. It’s also a convenient place for fans to vent their frustrations when things don’t go well. In a setting like that, there’s bound to be disagreement sooner or later.

Let’s not forget, a good number of fanposts on here invite debate and disagreement. The problems arise when folks start mocking other people’s opinions or feel they’re the “BCB Police” and criticize fanposts for not being worthy of being a fanpost.

My suggestion to those who have issues with people’s posts or comments is to email Al and ask him to look into it. Taking the initiative to police this site is ridiculous and only provokes retaliation from other members.

All in all, I think this blog is a great place. Sure, it has it’s moments where all hell breaks loose, but most of the time, I couldn’t ask for more. IMO, there’s ABSOLUTELY nothing that needs fixing.

I can’t believe it was only a 4.7 — It felt a hell of a lot stronger!

I think some posters here take anything neg you say as examples of hating the player. Say something neg about Lee and all of a sudden you hate the guy. Now there may be some posters that want Lee to be DFA’d or benched. I don’t get that and I would ignore the poster for even thinking that.

But from my perspective, Micah needs more playing time. Maybe a couple of times a week would be nice. Does that make me a DLee hater? I don’t think so. He is a great defensive first baseman and can still hit major league pitching.

And maybe saying something like Lee needs to spend more time on the bench would actually help the team. Get Micah some playing time. And keep Lee more fresh during the season also.

Also maybe some of the sunshine fans need to be sympathetic of the angst that some of the neg posters are going through. As long as it doesn’t get into the realm of actually rooting for the players to fail. I have been in many threads recently and I can only recall one fan rooting for a player to fail.

Good post Tim, grade A for the discourse. It would be nice to discuss the Cubs civilly without some of the language and name calling sometimes.

I lurked around a fair bit last year and don’t recall seeing so much negativity and flaming. Maybe I was just lucky then or have been unlucky this season in terms of the threads and posts I’ve happened to read.

The problem that I keep noticing is that some people seem determined to read other people’s statements as being more extreme than they actually are. Say, for example, someone posts a comment about Derrek Lee. If the comment is even slightly negative, then certain people will respond as if the poster has suggested that D-Lee is the worst player in MLB history and should be taken out behind the bleachers as soon as possible and shot. If the comment is slightly positive or optimistic, then someone will respond as if the poster is a kool-aid-drinking moron completely out of touch with reality. In fact, the best way to sum it up may be that these individuals seem to want to view each of us as an extreme caricature of a Cub fan. You open your mouth on here to contribute something and they’re going to listen exactly long enough to determine whether you are a “Ledge Jumper” or a “Kool-Aid-Drinker” (no other options) — and then they will treat you accordingly, with a pointless argument generally ensuing. It’s not pretty in my opinion.

I haven’t really been personally subjected to this sort of treatment, but probably only because I keep my mouth shut a lot of the time. It isn’t fun to see though even if you’re not the target, and I’ve left at least 2 or 3 game threads this year because of this kind of unpleasantness (one of those was the one when “aramis” got banned).

Anything else I would add would really just be retreading points that Al has already made pretty clear in the BCB Community Guidelines. Might be a good idea if everyone just had a look at those —even if you’ve been here a long time, could be time to refresh your memory…

… in fact, the points are made quite well. (CubFanInCanberra also brings up some useful points.)

Really, the bottom line is this: this site is set up so Cubs fans can have discussions about issues involving the team and baseball. Whenever that happens, people are bound to disagree.

And that’s fine. All I ask is that you keep the profanity out and treat others with respect. Disagree, even vehemently, but try to back up your disagreements with facts and don’t attack the poster.

Thanks.

It’s considerably better than the Cubs MLB board. I don’t even bother with that anymore because I never learn anything from it, and it’s so heavy on the name calling and player bashing.

We can discuss and disagree; just concentrate on the message instead of the messenger.
Very good post, IMO.

You and I had a similar mini-discussion in another thread. A little civility can go a long way.

I don’t always agree with your opinions, but I’ve never had an issue with the way that you present them, or the way that you respond to opinions that you disagree with.

I’m in my fifties, but I always tell people I was born a Cub fan. My mom also grew up a Cub fan and she was always a polite, never criticize, supportive but low-key type of fan.

My father didn’t become a Cub fan until his twenties, and while he was an avid fan, he always "rooted" by ripping and tearing down the team. Any strikeout meant that player should be sent to minors, whenever a reliever came in it was either too early to take out the starter, or the manager waited too long. You get the idea. I always wondered why he watched so many games, until I realized that was just the way he chose to be a fan. It allowed him to outwardly disconnect with the team, while inwardly he was very much emotionally attached.

So growing up I would always be the opposite of my Dad. The more he rooted against, the more I rooted for. Also, as a kid, I grew up on a block that had more Sox fans than Cub fans, I had to be overly defensive (on supporting the Cubs) to survive in the neighborhood debates. All this made me more of an over the top type of fan, that made it hard to openly criticize or for example boo a player. Now, that doesn’t mean I don’t complain or criticize the team or players, I just do it with other "trusted" fans.

No big concluding point here, I just think it the spectrum is pretty wide for how someone might choose to support their team. As others have already said, debate and challenges can be interesting and entertaining, but the snippy lecturing stuff and in a very few cases open attacks are just tedious.

Thanks for this post Tim, I was starting to wonder if these kind of name calling and bashing of posters was the norm. After that Zambrano bunting argument was exploding in 3 different posts and after about the first 50 replies they werent even arguing about Z anymore, that is not a fun argument at all. I grew up with very argumentative friends. So I love arguing, but arguing with facts and ideas, not I know more so therefor I am right.

Well, there are times discussions detoriorate into personal attacks between posters, but BCB is a lot better about that than other Cubs blogs. Considering how many people read and post on BCB, I’m amazed the behavior is as good as it is here.

And, as a side note, for those of you looking for the bashing type of sites, there are plenty of those out there. I’m sure the, ahm, individuals… at many of those sites would more than welcome your, ah, insightful critical comments.

Perhaps we should run a poll and vote for the least civil Cubs board? I can guess who I’d vote for….

You say that differences of opinion are fine as long as they’re civil (I agree with you completely about the "civil’ part, btw) but then you also say that people should keep negative opinions to themselves and not post them.

Look, I understand that constant negativity can be tiresome and a drag, etc. but I also understand that some people are more comfortable with that attitude. It’s like it’s part of their “fan personality”.

At the same time I don’t see a problem with occasionally questioning or criticizing. As much as I love the Cubs and want them to do well (and sleep better when they do), I don’t have the ability to turn my brain off when they strand runners on third with less than two outs or blow what should be comfortable ninth inning leads.

Pointing things like that out and wanting to talk about them with fellow fans doesn’t mean I’m “on the ledge”. To me, it’s just part of being a fan.

their own actions. There are a lot of so called “true fans” (several who have posted on this very thread) who don’t confine themselves to just confronting the trolls who only show up to post “he sucks” type comments but are quick to attack anybody who mentions anything negative about the Cubs (even if it’s done in a civil manner).

It absolutely cracks me up that these people are so completely in denial about the negative roles they play in all of this.

I am pretty much brand new to this board, but not to fans boards. I have spent the last couple of months on the Yahoo Cub board and I’ll tell you what, the inmates run the asylum. It is worse than a junior high locker room with the language, the who’s bigger back and forth and the trolls. I am hoping this is place where Cubs baseball can be discussed civilly and intelligently. I have found the Bears board here to be pretty much that way, so I thought I would give the Cubs board a go.

..the only way I win an argument is if I put down someone’s family and/or curse them out mercilessly.