When Did This Turn Into a Fan Site?

[Jay Edgar]

"We're going to kill them next week . . . "

"Who's hating on my team?"

=========================

Does anybody still bet on the games in here?

Sorry to be so pragmatic, but I don't give a rat's ass who wins except me. I am not looking to have my inner fan rewarded with a happy ending.

I am in it for myself and I am looking for insight and an edge.

Am I in the wrong place?

[Sam Odom]

follow my plays then

[Jay Edgar]

I am doing fine, thank you.

But I'd be happy to discuss the games -- as the man on the radio says - from a gambling perspective. What I thought this place was for.

[Sam Odom]

I am doing fine, thank you.

Post ur plays then

[Jay Edgar]

You need to look around the site, bro.

I do provide just a bit of substantive information.

[Sam Odom]

Thx

[Yoshi]

Am I in the wrong place?

Only a handful fanboy posters here, they should keep that stuff in the capping section imo. Bores me in the main forum too.

[bigboydan]

"We're going to kill them next week . . . "

"Who's hating on my team?"

=========================

Does anybody still bet on the games in here?

Sorry to be so pragmatic, but I don't give a rat's ass who wins except me. I am not looking to have my inner fan rewarded with a happy ending.

I am in it for myself and I am looking for insight and an edge.

Am I in the wrong place?

Believe me Jay, I know exactly what your saying. In fact, I have had many of PM's from posters on this subject over the past 5 months or so.

[onlooker]

I will back up BBD, I have had PM's on this matter as well.

[jjgold]

There is not enough to talk about daily as far as just betting on sports on a forum, it would be too repetitive. Just like talking about sportsbooks...really not much to talk about anymore and plus not many left.

[EBone]

Am I in the wrong place?

Man, I hope not. Because if you are in the wrong place, I'm in the wrong place.

I hear what you are saying. The "rah-rah" stuff and the "my team's the best....your team sucks" type of posts are just plain silly and unneeded.

I'm no forum expert so I don't know how to fix it. I'll be taking a hiatus from the forum in the next couple of months getting ready for baseball. I'll hope it has gotten back to its "roots" by then.

Good luck everyone.



E

[Mudcat]

I hear you Jay Edgar. For posters like us, the forum has been on a steady decline since around the start of football. It's becoming less substance, more empty noise.

I wouldn't mind so much if there was more humor but it seems like most of the wittiest posters are disappearing or gone.

Things have gone in a younger, angrier, Covers type direction. Judging by Dan and onlooker's responses here, SBR is satisfied with that. I'm sure that makes it a better forum for that type of poster, and people like us have to accept that we are the odd men out.

[Art Vandeleigh]

Maybe you should just peruse these rah-rah posts and use the information to guide you how as to how John Q. Public is viewing the game, and factor this info into your overall view of the current line.

[slacker00]

I agree with Jay Edgar, sometimes the forum spews a little too much rubbish. Then it snowballs and rubbish begets more rubbish until half of the threads are virtual duplicate discussion about the latest game or whatever. I know it's a tough job, sometimes, but maybe the mods need to manage the threads a little bit more, moving them to different forums and combining them. Just an idea.

The main forum should stick to sportsbook discussion and the related topics.

The discussion about specific sports teams/games should go to the appropriate sports forum.

The absolute rah rah posts such as "Team X sucks." should probably have it's own forum called "rah rah" or whatever. We need a generic "lounge" area here on SBR, and make it the default page for JJGOLD. He's gotta step up the content, IMO. But, I'm as guilty as anyone here, and I will try to get back to relevant discussion in the appropriate forums. Sometimes it's easy to peruse a thread and throw in my 2 cents, when the discussion really has zero to do with betting sports.

[Dark Horse]

Yesterday I watched a game as a fan, without money on the game (because I realized I was too involved with the team), for the first time in a long time. I had forgotten you could care so much about the outcome of a game purely as a fan. It was fun. Being a fan.

[trustbutverify]

Your Right Jay

I agree - i just began on this forum but i joined because it seemed like a place for real cappers. I was looking for a community where sharp sports investors could become sharper and enjoy company. My appetite for fandom kinda shrivelled when i became interested in this field- and realized its true profit potential. These fan posts- and the fan driven 'handicapping' that goes with them- really diminish the forum for guys like me.

[Stumpage]

Well, I'm not a long-time poster or anything of that sort, so to be honest I haven't really noticed the whole "rah-rah" increase, though I'm sure it exists.....If I can just add though, one thing I have definitely noticed over the last year is the increasing amount of "hatred" posts, for lack of a better word.

Maybe that's too strong a term, but sometimes I'm just left scratching my head in regards to a post every now and then. It's almost if the person wrote a reply simply to let someone else know how stupid they are, or an A-hole, or whatever. I'm sure everyone here is not so lacking in self-respect that they are going to let the words of a faceless writer affect them, but it seems that there are some angry people out there who are just looking for an excuse to unleash a nuclear barrage of written venom. But too each their own.....

Anyway, I imagine I went way off topic, but that's my 2 Canadian cents.....

[TLD]

Interesting. The “fan stuff” doesn’t particularly bother me. It’s typically stuff I just pass over. So at worst it’s just some extra clutter.

Would the site fit my tastes better without it? I suppose. In some minor way. But it never really made it onto my radar screen. I’m fine with a posting board that is welcoming to those who want to do the “fan” type stuff, even if I rarely make or read posts like that.

Probably my unconcern about it is more a matter of my awareness that minimally moderated public posting forums like this have so much that is vastly more deserving of objection. To cite the three that get under my skin the most:

1. Lying posters. Posters who shill for a book because they’re paid to do so; posters who make false or misleading insinuations about books, forum owners, other posters, etc. because they bear a grudge against them from past battles and this is how they retaliate; posters who praise a book they’re concerned about because they are trying to get their money out ahead of any run on the bank; posters who mislead readers about what is and isn’t profitable because they’re afraid other people beating the books might mean there is less for them, etc.

2. Gag posters. Posters who just post random nonsense in Borat fashion to see how many people’s legs they can pull for how long, to give themselves and others who “get” what they’re doing a laugh. Don’t necessarily have the slightest interest in or knowledge of the subject matter of the site; just enjoy ruining it for those who might “take themselves too seriously” by actually trying to learn from each other about sportsbetting and sportsbooks. (The most obvious example of such a poster is indeed so obvious as to be unnecessary to name.)

3. Political posters. Posters who see any posting board, regardless of the nominal subject matter, as simply a convenient place to spout their simplistic political gripes. The most common, though by no means only, type drawn to sports and sportsbetting forums seems to be of the “I-know-I’ll-get-bashed-for-being-politically-incorrect-but-I’m-a-brave-underdog-willing-to-frankly-point-out-what-others-are-afraid-to-say” variety ranting about just how oppressed and victimized heterosexual white American males are by women, other races, foreigners, gays, the poor, the media, and just the world in general. What any of it has to do with sportsbetting is unclear, but it’s a scab they have to constantly pick at.

I’ve generally measured the value of a site by how much or how little of these three it has. The “Tech’s gonna kick ass this week!” stuff doesn’t even register with me. I think of those posts as neutral, kind of like a discussion of some obscure European sportsbook that Americans can’t play at anyway. I don’t personally get anything from it, but some folks do, and more power to them. I hope the site can be broad enough to welcome myself and Jay Edgar and the like for the kinds of things we might want to post about, as well as the “fans” who just want to hang out and shoot the breeze about sports and their team.

The three types I cited, however, I don’t think of as neutral; I think they do great damage to a posting forum and in fact can render it utterly worthless once they reach critical mass. (Worthless in terms of what I want out of a site, that is. Not necessarily worthless in terms of generating traffic and revenue for the site owner; I’m not making a business judgment.)

[Jay Edgar]

Solid post, TLD.

Now that you mention it, your #1 and #3 are more serious concerns than what I was grumbling about.

I'd put #2 on about the same level.

On the flip side, any post that's as detailed and thoughtfully written as TLDs and some of the others inthis thread, I'm inclined to want more of -- almost no matter the subject.

Crap begets crap, and eventual disinterest. Thoughtfulness and detail begets the same -- even if it doesn't (nor should it) beget agreement.

[Hoja Verdes]

Great posts TLD and everyone else.

The unfortunate reality is that many of the "rah-rah's" simply don't have the intellectual capacity to foster the kind of forum we envision. They are mentally inferior and don't know any better. So goes the internet.