Trolls: Love 'em or Loath 'em
Posted 2:51 PM ET | Comments 0
I’ve been reading blogs on HB for years now and recently created a profile. I always wanted to throw out a comment or two when reading great analysis (see Yost, French around draft time, etc.) as well as when seeing comically bad team coverage (Richard Cloutier for one). However, I’m a bit emotional and get easily drawn into petty skirmishes with trolls – as well as start them from time to time by ragging on either Phaneuf’s contact or other Leaf miscues.
Usually the people that post a troll-like comment are taking advantage of good timing, whether it’s because of a player’s gaffe, poor team play or just a dumb comment. These commenters aren’t trolls, but rather people engaged in the ribbing that takes place when friends talk hockey – especially when said friends support different clubs. The point here is that there is an objective reality that exists, and that we all need to eat crow when our team underperforms. Like it or not, every season each of 30 teams have their moments where they look like the current Edmonton Oilers; and every season, each team can play a game or two looking like the ’86 Oilers. As a Sens fan, I’m mighty tired of eating BBQ crow at the moment… like, who puts a guy like Conacher on waivers? Even Peter Regin was traded for a 4th! But I digress.
Recently, I engage a few commenters that weren’t interested in discussing facts or advancing sound arguments; instead they would repeat their arguments in caps, employ abstract stats in a narrow fashion or twist logic to show how bad a franchise/player is. I mean, we’re all here wasting time talking hockey, odds are we’re not doing it on our lunch breaks at CERN; no one should take pride in looking like the smartest guy on these boards. If you post a few troll-like comments looking for someone to admit you were right over a month-old pointless debate, odds are you’re being a douche. If you don’t like a player and endeavor to find that one stat to support your argument while ignoring the other 100 that refute it, odds are you’re being a douche. If you argue that Russians aren’t good at the sport of hockey because they don’t show heart, odds are you’re being a douche AND a racist.
This morning I hit my breaking point... someone tried to take a poop on the Sens and Nucks organizations purely because, in my opinion, their team was eliminated from the playoffs the night before. The breaking point, in which I started laughing uncontrollably while riding public transit, was when the commenter said that recent success doesn’t matter; the commenter tried to say that Cup wins from the pre-expansion era, and franchise net worth, were the end-all be-all of hockey accomplishments. There was some name calling – whatever. What bothered me more was that this person was so disingenuous that, in the same comment, they would chastise someone for not arguing ‘the facts’ while dismissing other facts as irrelevant; my brain almost exploded. They claimed that Toronto was the greatest franchise in hockey while two other franchises, which have combined for 3 more Cup appearances in the past 20 years, were utter jokes. I understand that there are moderators on this site, but should it really come down to that? I guess I should just follow the old adage ‘don’t feed the bears’. From now on, I’ll just ignore them.
My last message to Prock/Sensnucksnocups – you need some help my man. I see no point in writing such nasty comments only to illicit similar emotions from other fans, and the level of anger you show seems indicative of a deep-seeded problem. Honestly, similar to that guy that tortures cats for the fun of it, your behaviour on this site isn’t normal. I may not be able to report you for making insane and hate-filled comments (especially when you don’t use explicit language), but I can point you out as being that guy that ruins the HB experience for the rest of us.
For MyHockeyBuzz, I’m KarlKarlsson.
Usually the people that post a troll-like comment are taking advantage of good timing, whether it’s because of a player’s gaffe, poor team play or just a dumb comment. These commenters aren’t trolls, but rather people engaged in the ribbing that takes place when friends talk hockey – especially when said friends support different clubs. The point here is that there is an objective reality that exists, and that we all need to eat crow when our team underperforms. Like it or not, every season each of 30 teams have their moments where they look like the current Edmonton Oilers; and every season, each team can play a game or two looking like the ’86 Oilers. As a Sens fan, I’m mighty tired of eating BBQ crow at the moment… like, who puts a guy like Conacher on waivers? Even Peter Regin was traded for a 4th! But I digress.
Recently, I engage a few commenters that weren’t interested in discussing facts or advancing sound arguments; instead they would repeat their arguments in caps, employ abstract stats in a narrow fashion or twist logic to show how bad a franchise/player is. I mean, we’re all here wasting time talking hockey, odds are we’re not doing it on our lunch breaks at CERN; no one should take pride in looking like the smartest guy on these boards. If you post a few troll-like comments looking for someone to admit you were right over a month-old pointless debate, odds are you’re being a douche. If you don’t like a player and endeavor to find that one stat to support your argument while ignoring the other 100 that refute it, odds are you’re being a douche. If you argue that Russians aren’t good at the sport of hockey because they don’t show heart, odds are you’re being a douche AND a racist.
This morning I hit my breaking point... someone tried to take a poop on the Sens and Nucks organizations purely because, in my opinion, their team was eliminated from the playoffs the night before. The breaking point, in which I started laughing uncontrollably while riding public transit, was when the commenter said that recent success doesn’t matter; the commenter tried to say that Cup wins from the pre-expansion era, and franchise net worth, were the end-all be-all of hockey accomplishments. There was some name calling – whatever. What bothered me more was that this person was so disingenuous that, in the same comment, they would chastise someone for not arguing ‘the facts’ while dismissing other facts as irrelevant; my brain almost exploded. They claimed that Toronto was the greatest franchise in hockey while two other franchises, which have combined for 3 more Cup appearances in the past 20 years, were utter jokes. I understand that there are moderators on this site, but should it really come down to that? I guess I should just follow the old adage ‘don’t feed the bears’. From now on, I’ll just ignore them.
My last message to Prock/Sensnucksnocups – you need some help my man. I see no point in writing such nasty comments only to illicit similar emotions from other fans, and the level of anger you show seems indicative of a deep-seeded problem. Honestly, similar to that guy that tortures cats for the fun of it, your behaviour on this site isn’t normal. I may not be able to report you for making insane and hate-filled comments (especially when you don’t use explicit language), but I can point you out as being that guy that ruins the HB experience for the rest of us.
For MyHockeyBuzz, I’m KarlKarlsson.