Troll Musing

One of the ways that you know you've made it as a blogger is when you acquire trolls. We've managed to avoid them for the most part here at FTT, but they're all over the place at Epic Carnival, which is probably to be expected, given that the place (a) gets high traffic, and (b) is an invitation-only "superblog". So we get the usual amount, plus the jealousy factor, plus the possibility of someone in the group using the Anonymous tag to make a few points. I've written about it before.

There are two points that I'd like to make about this, and then I promise to get back to actual sports stuff that someone might care about...

1) In the past 10 months, I've made some 600+ posts between here and the Carnival. I've generated dozens of links from blogs that get a lot more traffic than mine, and have had some very encouraging moments from the community and various individuals. Finally, it's the Web; no one's charging you to read my stuff.

At this point, what you see is what you get. I might have good and bad days, but this is the level; if you don't like it, please do us both a favor and read someone else. I'm really not going to quit from your opinion. (Though trolls aren't, for the most part, known for their ability to deal with reality.)

2) Mark Twain once said "I could live a month on a compliment", and that's as true today as it was in his time. Bill James also once wrote that if any of his readers ever heard him on sports talk radio, he really wanted them to call in -- because, oh Lord, there were some real idiots out there, and if you cede the day to them, it just meant that he was going to think twice about taking the job a second time.

So if you like something, throw a little love the author's way. Ballhype recommendations are nice and all, but comments are better, especially if it's getting trolled. This can be lonely work, especially on days when the ideas aren't flowing. Your kind words matter.

Now, we return you to your regularly scheduled foolishness.