I think that the "featured comments" feature is a retrograde step. The overpowering impression is that contributions from the hoi polloi are not welcome. I have felt increasingly unwelcome, here, as time goes by; whereas I might have thought about contributing something substantial in the past, I decided to keep my thoughts to myself.

While I understand the aim of keeping the displayed discussion at the site at a high level, I think that the bad side-effects will outweigh any benefit. If there's a slow week, it will look like nobody is posting at all. If there's a slow month or three (e.g. this offseason) then the site will appear totally dead to newcomers. I think it would be a mistake to think that any site can thrive without newcomers, or that newcomers would be attracted to something which looks like a blog but has few comments apparent.

I am however worried that this "featured comment" system will make the site look like a barren wasteland to visitors without accounts. You guys might want to consider making all comments the default setting, with the filtered version available to those with accounts.

Trust us, we've talked about this for months.  We're ok with it if a thread only has a few featured comments, or even none.  We've had a fair amount of feedback from 'lurkers' essentially saying less is more.

Plus, from now to the end of the season we'll have at least two new threads every day.  It'll be tough for the site to look like a wasteland.

And if you set your preference to 'All Comments' this part of the change is really a non-event.

OK, now I think I got it. I can use "source" if I want to type straight HTML code. I was also having a problem inserting links but I think I solved that too.

Not bad.

"I was also having a problem inserting links but I think I solved that too"

I had to ask so I assume it's a common problem.  The key is to highlite the words that you want to hold the link.  Once you do that the link button in the editor 'un-grays' and you can put in the address.

Lilly likely to miss start this weekend is accomplished by highliting the 'likely to miss start' and then hitting the link button (the chain), then you can paste in the address, hit ok, and there it is.  For me this is a great time saver.

Err. I'm not seeing the new editor - its still the same ole TEXTAREA that I've seen before

OSX 10.4.5. Safari. About to check FF in a second.

Please fill in the Title and Comment fields, as they are necessary for your submission of a comment.

This is certainly not the case for me - Javascript is enabled in Safari.

I've just noticed that the editor used here doesnt support Safari

Which is strange, since I could have sworn I saw an internal site at work use the same control, and that I saw it working on Safari

An unfortunate development.

Which is strange, since I could have sworn I saw an internal site at work use the same control, and that I saw it working on Safari

The Good: I like the bar with new tools, very neat!

The Bad: there should be a spell check, if possible.

The Ugly: here's where I get in trouble.

Boy, oh boy, I do not like the "featured" thing. Sorry.

Since I first found this site over a year ago, I've come here EVERYDAY. In fact, any day I have access to the Internet, I come here FIRST, even before I check with CNN to see if anybody nuked anybody, or whom we're at war with today. I love this site...

I've been proud that the "cabal, I know there is no cabal" has worked to see that the site doesn't descend into abuse and vulgarity. I've also been impressed that the "cabal" has wanted to see posters at least partially literate. BUT, I am really uncomfortable with the "cabal" deciding that a particular thought by a member doesn't warrant the same consideration as an other thought by a peer. I really wish you would re-think this. I'm even uncomfortable that the "cabal" may/will/has already decided that some comments by members of the "cabal" should be "non-featured" by other members of the "cabal."

I'm sorry, it's just that the world spends too much time putting people into either the "goats" or the "sheep." In my world, when I get to make it, we'll all be the same thing, even it's only  fire ants.

I agree with Mylegacy and the others who have echoed similar comments. You're basically saying to people "your comment isn't worth reading so don't bother." 

I understand the concerns behind this and other's comments, but I really don't see the problem.

Some threads get a tremendous about of off-topic crap in them....'hiding' those comments from casual visitors to the site can only be a good thing.

My question is:  Will comments that are critical of an article (whether in content or conclusion) but that are 'On Topic' be 'Featured'?  <---This is the area where I can see that the subjective opinion of one person (or a group of persons) may cause issues.

Granted, the power-that-be can just choose to delete a posted comment anytime they wish...but that sort of thing usually stirs up a firestorm. 

A feature I've been hoping for is that each post would have a named anchor next to each post that would allow you to link to a particular post on the story page, rather than just to a comment -- like so. This is fairly simple and only requires putting in something like <a name="#144271" />

I've been proud that the "cabal, I know there is no cabal" has worked to see that the site doesn't descend into abuse and vulgarity. I've also been impressed that the "cabal" has wanted to see posters at least partially literate. BUT, I am really uncomfortable with the "cabal" deciding that a particular thought by a member doesn't warrant the same consideration as an other thought by a peer. I really wish you would re-think this. I'm even uncomfortable that the "cabal" may/will/has already decided that some comments by members of the "cabal" should be "non-featured" by other members of the "cabal."

My question is:  Will comments that are critical of an article (whether in content or conclusion) but that are 'On Topic' be 'Featured'?  <---This is the area where I can see that the subjective opinion of one person (or a group of persons) may cause issues.

The vast majority of deleted posts go unnoticed by the group at large.  But now we won't delete as many.  Basically, we're doing the opposite -- instead of making the less-good stuff go away, we push what we like best up to the top of the heap.

Your last comment was 25 seconds ago. This site requires at least 45 seconds between comments. Please wait before posting again.

Anti-spam measure?

(I forgot one point in a post, and was going to add a quicky followup)

Your last comment was 25 seconds ago. This site requires at least 45 seconds between comments. Please wait before posting again.

Anti-spam measure?

     For what it's worth, I was a "new user" and "casual visitor" just a few months ago, during all the off-season excitement, and I never found it "daunting" to see 100 or 200 posts.  I think the roster members are being too modest.  This has always been a high-quality highly-intelligent discussion group.  If we have to scroll past a few comments that are a bit lower quality, I don't think it's a problem.  I think any experienced Internet surfer is accustomed to that.  The signal-to-noise ratio here has always been quite good.   I think the community of BB posters is deserving of encouragement, and the potential bruised feelings of someone whose comment is "non-featured" could be discouraging to the community here. 

    At the same time, I admit that I wasn't aware of the problem of deleted posts and emails to violators.  Perhaps you can explain a bit more about that.  If this was a problem -- if you had to send out a lot of emails and delete a lot of posts -- can you perhaps explain the problem?  I'm a bit surprised, since I'm normally quite impressed by the intelligence of the posts here.   What are the most common violations?  Personally, as a free-speech advocate, I would hope that very few comments are actually so egregious as to warrant a deletion.

    At the same time, I admit that I wasn't aware of the problem of deleted posts and emails to violators.  Perhaps you can explain a bit more about that.  If this was a problem -- if you had to send out a lot of emails and delete a lot of posts -- can you perhaps explain the problem?  I'm a bit surprised, since I'm normally quite impressed by the intelligence of the posts here.   What are the most common violations?  Personally, as a free-speech advocate, I would hope that very few comments are actually so egregious as to warrant a deletion.

Cristian your funny LOL!!!!1

To add to NFH's comments, I have set my Preferences to "All Comments".  I personally do not mind reading all the comments made by BB readers.  OK, that's an exaggeration.  The insulting ones really bug me, but that is under 1% of comments.

The end goal here is to have a thoughtful, respectful conversation about baseball. That does not mean the occasional silliness (we remember the cuttlefish fondly, which perhaps Mike M will bestow on us again) and humour are not welcome. 

I appreciate the candour and humour of Magpie's post, but I must admit that I don't understand it.

On one hand, it suggests that the Roster see the articles and not the comments as the main value of the site, and I receive this impression most strongly from a number of Roster members' posts. Comments are apparently tolerated at best. On the other, it asks for the community-at-large to contribute, presumably in the comments. I don't understand the incentive to contribute a comment when, according to Magpie's curmudgeon-style moderation, it would have only a 20% chance of most readers being able to see it.

Well, we're using you. Nyah-hah-hah. (Attempts to twirl ends of mustache...) You provide intelligent baseball discussion and conversation, and we will gleefully, happily, contentedly, blissfully  - publish it.

I honestly don't understand why this doesn't contradict the earlier part of the post. I must be missing the point. Surely the bargain does indeed cut both ways.

But argument aside, it boils down to not feeling welcome. Perhaps that's not the right word: not valued, perhaps. And there goes any desire to contribute substantively.

I appreciate that you're asking a genuine question, NFH, and will try to answer sensibly.

As for "Comments are apparently tolerated at best", who has said that? 

That's my interpretation of this bit:

the notion of the Box as a "forum" always inspires shrieks of horror and dread within the Roster - people have left grumbling that the Box is heading in that direction - and consideration is often instantly given to almost any desperate measure that might  prevent the Box from becoming a "forum." 


I'm not trying to put words into your mouth, but that reads to me like "if you don't present every one of my posts as the very best your site has to offer, I'm not going to post".  Why would you not feel "valued"? 

It's actually quite hard to answer and I wouldn't want you to think that the featured-comments thing is the only non-welcoming feature. That's been a building feeling for over a year now. And it really applies not to posting average comments, which I would probably continue to do if permitted, but potentially to offering more substantial analyses.

On reflection, I realise that I've been an active member of a number of internet communities where moderation has been employed and it has never bugged me so much as here. I think the key features here are a) that the moderation increases the divide between roster and non-roster members, making the public-at-large feel particularly second class, and b) that the default is for posts not only to be non-featured but to be completely hidden from all non-registered readers. The very existence of non-featured comments appears to be denied, unless one is registered (from a brief glance, anyway).

To return to your question, you surely see that "if you don't present every one of my posts as the very best your site has to offer" is not equivalent to "if you hide some of my posts from the vast majority of your readers". (Magpie does say that the lurkers are a vast majority). I really have no problem with rewarding and highlighting good posts -- who would? -- but this is not the same as hiding (by default and non-optionally for most readers) the others. Most "forums" work on the former principle.

it suggests that the Roster see the articles and not the comments as the main value of the site

Well, DUH! -  of course we do. We work really really hard on them. Come on, that ought to be a no-brainer. Of course I regard an article that I spent almost a month researching and writing as more valuable to the site in general, and me in particular, than a comment that was dashed off in 30 seconds or less.

I think that this is a fallacy. I'm being really serious here and not running the articles down so please hear me out.

I love your writing, Magpie, and I fully appreciate the time you take over it. But if there are 100 comments in response to an article, and you would admit that some would be 30 second jobs but others involve a certain amount of research (some might have taken half an hour to research and whip up a table in the post, say), and bearing in mind that 100 different viewpoints from people with different skills has potentially a rounded view of whatever is being discussed, then the cumulative value in the comments can be of considerable value. It really can be worth more than the article itself.

(If I place my tongue firmly in my cheek I could say that some members of your generation, Magpie, perhaps don't understand the synergistic potentialities of the internet as a collaborative medium.)

It makes for an interesting thought-experiment. Suppose that BB (or any other blog/forum/whatever) had no comments but only the articles. Is it still valuable? I have to say that I would not come to this site at all often, maybe once a week to skim the minor league reports. Maybe to catch up on a game I missed, although there are many places to read game reports. It would have been different when Moffatt did his excellent roundups, but I understand the pressures that prevent this now. I hope you don't take this the wrong way, but my opinion is that the average (non-Magpie) articles here are not nearly of a comparable standard to, say, The Hardball Times (for analysis) or The Baseball Analysts (for narrative).

Then suppose that it only had comments but no articles. I can only speak for myself but I would still come here, and I would be keen to contribute.

I know jolly well that not all people feel the same way, but I would not be so quick to dismiss the value of comments compared with that of articles. I really don't think it's a no-brainer.

I can assure you, Andrew K, that when I write a minor league report or update or a "You Be The Manager", my primary audience is not the lurker, but the registered user.  We have registered users where the minor league teams are located who provide invaluable first-hand information through their comments (and photographs).  For "You Be the Manager", I am interested in responses to what I have written, not in having many lurkers read the piece. 

Hopefully, more of our lurkers will become registered users (it doesn't cost a cent!), and those who wish to see featured comments only could choose that, and those who wish to see all comments would choose that. 

I hope you don't take this the wrong way, but my opinion is that the average (non-Magpie) articles here are not nearly of a comparable standard to, say, The Hardball Times (for analysis) or The Baseball Analysts (for narrative).

As a THT writer and a reader and well-wisher of Rich and Bryan, I would disagree.  They are of at least a nearly comparable standard and depending on what the user wants, meet or exceed that standard.  With the caveat that the "average" Box article is a very different beast with a very different goal in mind. 

Unlike THT or the Analysts guys, very little of what is here is blah-blah-blah... the Batter's Box material usually has a specific purpose (a game report here, a Hall of Names there, a Minor League Update here, a Hall Watch there, or a Photo of the Week any given day).  In terms of achieving that purpose, I think that Batter's Box writers meet a high standard.  The prose ain't always as neat and pretty... we at THT, for example, have an editorial staff of several (wonderful and selfless) persons that slave over every article.  Da Box doesn't do that.  It's rawer, but its rawness doesn't prevent it from achieving a high standard.

At its best, Batter's Box is the best.  More superb work here has been published than anywhere else other than Hardball Times, and maybe Prospectus (although that's because they had several years' drop on Da Box).

As for "Comments are apparently tolerated at best", who has said that? 

That's my interpretation of this bit:

the notion of the Box as a "forum" always inspires shrieks of horror and dread within the Roster - people have left grumbling that the Box is heading in that direction - and consideration is often instantly given to almost any desperate measure that might  prevent the Box from becoming a "forum."

I consider myself a very occasional, informed, and selective poster. I have been reading and enjoying this site for three years now and I thank all of you for the hard (unpaid) work that you have provided over the years.

I understand the rational behind your decision to institute a "featured comments" default, and if it brings some of the older posters back to the site then that is surely a good thing.

That said, I find the decision to be dissapointing. We can message the rhetoric but the decision is an elitist response to the increased traffic on the site, and discourages a casual poster from joining the discussion. I know this site is a Cabal (and of course there is no Cabal), yet I wonder if a more conventional Cabal could, and/or would, make the decision to "feature" comments. Hence I find this new development raises a contradiction about what an electronic Cabal is, and how the ideal is compromised with the intersection of this particular technology.

Again, this is your (Ca)ball and you are free to do what you want with it, but nonetheless I am truly saddened by the tone that is set with this decision.

We can message the rhetoric but the decision is an elitist response to the increased traffic on the site, and discourages a casual poster from joining the discussion.

I understand the elistist comment and to some extent agree with it.  That's just the direction that as a group the Roster chose to take.  We have to have a site that we enjoy because if we don't enjoy it the site wouldn't exist.  I can tell you we considered much more extreme measures from closing off all comments to making comments available to a select few posters.  But if we did that we'd close ourselves off to the future Robs and Magpies who do great work for the site and other quality posters that have yet to stumble upon Batter's Box so we ended up with the featured comments. 

The other point I disagree with.  I think featured comments encourages quality posters.   I'm more likely to post in a thread where there's a high percentage of great posts than one where the great posts are hit or miss, and when I do post I'll want to make sure that I'm not dropping the ball on the conversation.  When there's posts of unequal or poor quality there's less reason to want to make a top notch post, or even post at all.

While I'm generally indifferent about the "featured" post strategy,  it is important to recognize that the real strength of this site are the discussion threads. 

This site attracts a group of intelligent baseball fans and the discussion that takes place within these threads is often very enlightening. 

While many of the articles are excellent the vast majority of them are essentially initiating posts that are desgined to foster intelligent discussion.

I'm not sure if you have conducted any sort of analysis of the sites readership but if my own anecdotal memory serves me correctly those threads which receive the most posts are the Notes from Nowhere threads that discuss offseason rumours and player movement.   Its safe to say that few people come here to read  the "Hall of Names" articles...  not that I don't find them amusing from time to time.

Sometimes I find that there are far too many threads, many of which receive very little attention.   For example the team previews generate an average of what, 10 comments a piece.  A player by player analysis of individual Blue Jays and their career and season projections would be far more interesting and result in increased readership during the Spring.

The true articles that the site produces are quite excellent, but a fairly low percentage of the threads relate to such true articles.

NFH:

I agree with you that generating a large number of posts shouldn't be the aim of the site, and that it isn't a perfect indicator of how much an article/thread is viewed/enjoyed, but it does indicate that many people do come to the site to state their opinions and to hear what others have to say about player movement, trades and rumours.  It's a tough balance no doubt between ensuring quality and enhancing readership/participation. 

Some of the analysis contained within those threads ie.  trying to quantify in runs scored/runs against terms whether the club benefitted from the Overbay trade for example, was analytically spectacular.   The articles aren't the only source of insight is all I'm saying, and you're featured comment strategy does take this element into account. 

I'd love to see articles dealing with specific transactions and specific in game strategies (ie the should Hill have bunted discussion currently taking place in another thread) that are intended to spark debate.   These debates currently tend to emerge in the threads, the threads are the true gold of the site, that's my point.  

Coming to Da Box should be like observing and occasionally contributing to a sort of baseball salon, a sandlot socratic dialogue.  This is why I check it out, and I believe it is what makes the site so unique.  Don't focus too much on the articles, focus on the debate/thread content (this is entirely consistent with your featured comment change).

Newton,

While it may be true that many of the most lively threads are spawned by content-free, conversation-starting stories, it is somewhat misleading to equate 'lively' with 'best'.  Much of the writing here (very little of which emanates from my lazy ass) is top-notch stuff.  

Here is a little exercise:  go down to the 'Topics' menu on the left-hand side and click on "AL West Report".  There, you will find 12,531 of the most well-written stuff in existence about that divisions' teams in 2006 (the collective efforts of Mike D., Gitz and Lucas).  Or, you can go to other sites and endure insufferable pop-ups for the benefit of inferior content.  Or, you can go to Baseball Prospectus, get out your credit card and plop down $39.95 USD for the benefit of Joe Sheehan's AL West preview.*

That was more for the benefit of Andrew K. than you, Newton, but it was partially in response to your comment that the true value of the site comes from the conversation.  The conversation is good, but there is value to be found in simply reading.  All that said (or written, as it were), we want to inspire and participate in great baseball conversation, which is precisely the rationale for the new 'featured comments' feature.   By hiding the bad stuff, you can (or will bother to) see the good stuff and hopefully contribute to it.

*THT not included here because, well, THT is fantastic.

It would be interesting to see what % of registered users switched from "Featured Comments Only" to "All Comments" upon first encountering battersbox.ca v3.5, and, of that percentage, how long it took them to do so.  For me, it took about 5 seconds.  It seems that most other registered respondents in this thread (who are not of the Roster and as such had this option) took about the same amount of time to make the switch.  *That* should tell the Roster something, that most committed Bauxites find value in reading ALL comments and don't want to see anything filtered except what they choose to mentally filter themselves.

---

Now that I see "All Comments", I see which ones are Featured, or "Baseballed", or not.  As such, I agree 100% with Cristian's earlier post (which happened to be "Baseballed").  Here is one paragraph (with hyperlinks removed):

Cristian - Wednesday, April 05 2006 @ 11:39 AM EDT (#144396)
I've held my opinion about the new system in check for the past two days.  Now that I've thought about it rationally, I must say I really don't mind it.  If I can make one suggestion, it would be that the little balls not appear beside featured comments.  It's pretty disheartening to log back in just to find that your post wasn't deemed valuable.  The system seems arbitrary and it looks to me that some posters' posts get featured regardless of how inane and pointless the posts are.  Yes, I do mean that roster members are able to wisecrack, add nothing and still have their comedy stylings featured.

Conversely, if there were only the comments and never the original articles I'd probably come here only slightly less often.  The site clearly wouldn't be as good as it is now, but it would be a lot closer and still be of value.

And I don't think I'm alone in my opinion of the relative importance of articles versus comments amongst people who are strictly readers/commenters.

While you are not alone, you are not in the majority by any measure -- we recently had issues with the domain registration, causing battersbox.ca to be unavailable.  We sent out a message to all registered users telling them where they could find our site at a temporary address.  While the number of comments did not decrease in a meaningful way, the number of hits and the number of individual visits went down something like 90%.

In other words, only about 10% of our readership logs in and comments.

1. Not everyone who is registered realized the site was down, so you didn't get all the comments you would have gotten. I.e., I didn't see the email until after the site was back up but I did try to go to the site while it was down (repeatedly). Maybe it is telling that I visit BP, BTF, Y!sports, BB, and 2+2 all more than I visit my gmail account that gets emails from sites I've registered from.
2. Do the people who never write comments come to the site:
   • a) to read the articles
   • b) to read the articles+discussion
   • c) to read just the discussion
   I'd say b is the most popular. But if I think about threads I never write a comment in, for me, c is more important than a. I.e., the discussion is more valuable than the articles - in general - even for people not contributing to the discussion.

Unlike the featured articles, the discussion seems to be where readers/outsiders get to have their say without interference (as long as they're not being offensive, rude, excessively annoying, or incoherent--but that's really a separate issue).

No, it's exactly the issue we're addressing.

If you can't define the issues, you can't debate them.

On the one side, there is a concern that free speech will most certainly be violated, that people will be marginalised, and the elite are abusing their power. On the other side, there are explanations that it is only a system to filter the rude, the offensive, the imbecilic. Although sometimes they go off that message.

I don't expect the Roster wants to stonewall every thought and remark that doesn't quite meet approval. Why would they do that now? They could have always done it, but look at all the comments that remain. Suddenly they need to legitimise discarding the less-than-worthy? I don't think the standards of expectation really change here. See here to be assured that there will not be a long delay in getting comments approved. If there is any source of concern, it might be that.

In my view, I'd like to turn off the baseballs and the notes on how many comments are approved. What do I care what's approved? I changed my setting to view all comments permanently, so really there is nothing about the site that changes for me. Maybe others can't see the comment I wrote until it's been approved, but what of it? Regular readers like myself can still read the site as it's always been. I expect there are enough admin to approve any sensible comment within a day. I expect it's not difficult to set comments to approve.

Yet there is another side to the issue NFH does also suggest that the system will be more selective. But again I say, so what if it is? I don't understand whether the direction will be to approve only a small handful of comments -- only ones relevant to the story, up to a point, or if it will be every comment that isn't offensive or baseless. Whichever, just change the setting in your preferences and all will be like it was.

I see this as not a system to help average readers improve the readability of the site for themselves, but as a system to attract more people into the community. I'd like to know whether the featured comments will be really limited just to draw people in, or very broad to exclude only the very marginal. And then I'd like to see the baseballs and the messages about featured comments disappear. Because really, if it doesn't help me, and it doesn't affect other readers and commenters who read the site, I don't want the distraction.

It would be nice to have a ranking system à la /. to improve the readability of the site, but that's another can of worms. Then many folks here would really get up in arms, once posters start getting different levels and fighting about the scoring. This is hardly a relevant filter. Perhaps it should have been turned off by default, but then who would complain that they shouldn't have to turn it on to see what the elite were filtering? Maybe I'm wrong, but this shouldn't affect registered users, except those who really do try to use this as a system to improve the readability of the site. And if that's you, let me know if it actually works.

I sure wouldn't want to go through all this trouble just to make the comments section slightly less noisy and I would also question how many people are going to choose to read just read the featured comments (anyone)? I almost never post outside of the fantasy threads and very rarely logged in but enjoy reading all of the comments and if it means that I have to stay logged in from now into the future to make that happen, then so be it.

As a previous poster mentioned, I believe *I* am most qualified to determine what I feel is 'noise' and what is a quality post so I'll choose to read all of them. If a member of the roster wants to go through all the threads to clean them up, I don't object in the least: I just wonder for whom they're being cleaned.

NFH, my eyes would probably ignore that post even if it were still here, but I definately appreciate that it's not. I was referring more to baseball related posts and relevant discussion that isn't necessarily judged as "featured" by those who control such things. I should also make clear I'm not arguing against this idea at all; you've left plenty of 'outs' for people who would rather not utilize the feature option.  I think at the end of the day I would just rather see attention paid by roster members to the content of the articles as opposed to the content of the threads, because as a visitor of this site I get more out of the articles (and pictures) than I do the discussion.

That being said this is still a great community of people here and I read most of the threads religiously. I also enjoy participating in the game chat, especially since out here in the west there aren't a plethora of baseball fans that like to sit around, watch a game and BS.

For those of you who feel offended by the changeover (to featured comments) and who yearn for a more wide-open egalitarian place to discuss baseball, my humble suggestion is that you get together and create such a place for yourselves. Put in the work. Build a home of your own. Then you might get an inkling of what it has been like for the people who built this place we call Da Box.

I can't endorse this comment strongly enough.  DO IT!  I really encourage anyone, whether they like Batter's Box, hate Batter's Box, like the Old Box better, like the new Box more... whatever.  Maybe I'm restless by nature, but the wonderful thing about the internet is that it allows you to get your hands dirty and build a home for whatever you want, without any capital required other than your own sweat.

Creating Batter's Box and building was one of the most fun things I have done these last few years.

This isn't a brush-off, and it's definitely not a joke.  Go forth (all of you) and build something great, and tell us about it.  I'll make sure to show up and talk and I'm always available for advice.  Just as working on Baseball Primer inspired me in some of the ways that Da Box was built, I'm taking those ideas I gained here and putting them to work at Tyblog (especially on Tyblog version 2, coming soon), in my work for The Hardball Times, and on my new freaky-deaky site which is coming soon (hint: www.baseballchurch.com).

If you want something but no one out there provides it, the only solution is to build it yourself.  And don't forget - e-mail me (cb4@cashette.com works well) and ask for help, or tell me about it.

I've written letters to Sports Illustrated, Macleans and National Geographic a number of times. I've yet to actually see one of them published in the magazine the following month and I'm fine with that. I liken the featured comments to that "Mailbag" section you see in the magazines I mentioned, only we're fortunate enough to have *many* more comments shown and to have the ability to respond to those comments as well, hopefully on route to a well organized and quality discussion. Hopefully others can see that distinction as well and are encouraged by it to write in with salient questions and points. And, as others have said, if you want to see every comment, every reader can have that ability; this is a rather small issue.

Keep doing what you're doing, guys. Great job.