Are You the Reason Sports Articles Do Not Generate More Feedback Here at AC?
Why don't the sports articles at Associated Content draw more comments?
If anything, sports usually brings out strong opinions in people, which should lead to lots of feedback. But the reality is that it is rare for a sports article on AC to rack up the comments.
As of midnight Thursday, the top story in the sports section had seven comments. The other featured stories had two, zero, zero and one comment, respectively. The first 10 articles in the section had three, one, zero, two, zero, one, zero, zero, one and zero comments.
It's disgraceful and each of us who publishes in the section deserves some blame.
Now, obviously not every article is comment worthy. There's stuff out there that just doesn't lend itself well to feedback. I'm not trying to pick on anyone; I've written a bunch of articles that don't lend themselves to feedback, also. But when you have a list of fantasy cheat sheets or Super Bowl links or the best players from Nebraska, well chances are there's not a lot there for readers to chime in on.
But 10 Best Nicknames in Baseball History - do you as a sports fan really have no opinion on this one? The Greatest Heisman Winners - is it really possible that the author came up with the perfect list? NBA Teams Are Permitted to Cheat the System - we all agree with this and have no alternate theories?
Most of us play the game where we read someone else's articles and they read ours. These are the ones where people leave feedback to let the other person know they were there. You'll see comments like "Great Article" on a piece with 10 spelling errors, five grammar goofs and no discernable flow or logical thought pattern.
Now, I'm not suggesting that we start acting like the grammar police or anything. I would just rather that we read articles and expect the author to tell a good story or provide a realistic argument and praise them when they do and call them on it when they don't.
And I'm challenging every person who writes columns in the sports section to start reading and commenting on other people's work in the category. There's a lot of crap written here but there are also many people putting out worthwhile stuff.
Much like jcorn did, I'm calling on people to leave quality feedback. Read Lee Andrew Henderson or Zac Wassink or Nick Meyer or Uzo Ometo or Stephen Sullivan or a host of others here who do good stuff and let them know it. Agree with them, provide a counter argument, yank their chain - treat them like your buddies that you're talking sports with before the big game.
I'm used to reading blogs and forums that regularly get over 100 comments. I can't believe we can't break 20 comments here in the sports section.
Published by Brian Joura
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21 Comments
Post a CommentMy sports articles are riddled with factual errors and grammatical errors. They are also too generic. I should be blamed plenty Brian.
I think part of the problem could be the very fact there are far fewer sports fans than sports fans realize. When its part of our life and when we often rub shoulders with other sports fans, I think it is easy to lose sight of how few of us there really are (at least when compared to the general population).
It would be nice to see more quality comments, but if they were as honest as they could be, many would not take to them well. Even non-critical comments are misunderstood at times. I aspire to usually add something related to the article and to inspire, rather than be literary judge and jury...here on AC. Many resources exits for that. As for the topic...I think both your and Carol's points are well made. Oh and sometimes, all I have time for is "Good article!" :-) Here's to more sports comments!
ive been terrible at comments this past week. for some reason, though, none of my comments were showing up when i tried to post them. ironically, im also guilty of the lame articles (the link articles especially. im belting out another five of them next week). it also doesnt hurt that i have a mad fever right now. thanks for the shout out though, brian
You are definitely getting a comment from me and I didn't even have to get a "heads up" about this article being out there to find it. I don't know why sports, a subject that has its own section in the newspaper and on tv news, gets fewer comments here. I don't know about that because my niche area is not sports (except for ice skating, love that sport)..... I think your article about the topic is very well-written and not just because you mentioned my name, either. If I had to guess, I would say that many people who like sports are probably involved in athletics or cheering on a child in a soccer tournament rather than reading about it. But when I do find time to read a sports article, I am often fascinated by the quality of writing and the way the subject is covered.
hey good article this was something i too have been wondering about for a while. sports fans usually like to argue as much as any other segment
Brian, I hear your pain. You know my background in sports and I've pitched in some feedback here and there, maybe more so on non-sport-related articles. You know so much on many levels that some of those articles are indeed lost on others. "White chuckers" and others I can relate to, though breakdown of NY Mets minor leaguers (other other organizations), etc. is out of my realm, just don't know much about it, and would take your word on it. Each time I get an email announcing your latest article I always check it out to see if I can relate or learn something new...so keep them coming!
Great points here. I leave comments on sports articles frequently, mainly on those of Lee Andrew Henderson, for some reason. I'll try and leave some on the other ones I read, too. I have wondered before why I was usually the only one leaving a comment on really great sports articles. I wonder if Carol is right that for some people, once it's over, it's over.
Thanks Rich, I really liked your Quarry piece. As far as rating articles, I don't always do that because I think a comment has more meaning. CPs can manipulate an article's rating rather easily. I guess you can do that with anonymous comments, but comments by other CPs can carry a loy of weight, in my mind. And I'm not saying we should read every piece in the sports section, but if each time we post an article we take five minutes to read someone else's work and leave a meaningful comment, we all would be better off.
Excellent points Matt. Obviously number three is what I'm aiming for and in a tight-knit community I believe it's possible. Carol, Bridgitte and Lee have all read a bunch of my stuff and left numerous comments for me, as have others. There's no reason they can't write a comment for me that references our online experiences. Those threads you reference in number three will frequently have sub-threads going on in the comments section. I think those are wonderful because those can be the ones where readers learn more than just what's going on in the article. And I believe that drives page views, which is what we're all after to some degree.