Are the bans of certain writers and publications becoming counterproductive on this site?
I logged on to comment on the content posted by another user regarding Coach Harbaugh's podcast interview and suddenly the thread was gone. The OP posted a disclaimer about the content coming from some forbidden writer or publication.
However, it was good content. Now if it happens to be a hit piece, then I understand deleting it. But, shouldn't we welcome good content that can be discussed... on a message board. Maybe we should relax, and loosen up our sometimes vengeful posture.
February 18th, 2022 at 10:52 AM ^
end it here
February 18th, 2022 at 10:53 AM ^
Cancel Culture, something something... First Amendment, something something... Mainstream Media, something something...
February 18th, 2022 at 10:58 AM ^
This isn't about cancel culture. I'm honestly perplexed as to why good content about our beloved university's football team cannot be posted. It was not a negative article, and there were plenty of issues worth discussing in it.
Are we simply going to ban every writer or publication who doesn't write glowingly about Michigan all the time?
February 18th, 2022 at 11:07 AM ^
This wasn't aimed at you, actually. I was predicting how the rest of the thread might play out. For me, I've always assumed the "bans" were more about preventing information from known untrustworthy sources being shared more widely via the most popular UM sports blog, thereby extending the reach of those bad sources. I'm fine with that.
February 18th, 2022 at 11:51 AM ^
That sums up very well how I also feel about it. Not only was it a Ranier Sabin piece, it was also sprinkled with about a half dozen links to other Sabin columns plus a few additional Freep articles.
In other words, though this particular article (as 'Nervous Bird' clearly stated) was actually quite informative, it was still a lazy way for Sabin and the Freep to generate clicks and sow several more links, in the hope of generating additional clicks on previous columns by Sabin. Lazy "journalism", relying completely on the work Jon Jansen did in interviewing Jim Harbaugh for his podcast.
As others have already commented (and linked) there's plenty of other ways to access either the podcast itself or written summaries in other websites. MGoManagement has long made it clear (and correctly so) that their Blog isn't going to be a vehicle for clickbaity and inaccurate sources.
February 18th, 2022 at 12:18 PM ^
You are the joker from the Dark Knight, aren't you?
February 18th, 2022 at 12:48 PM ^
If anyone questions why this site works hard to curate the board content they should just go join one of the Facebook groups and watch what a ridiculous waste of time and energy it is to link to every last little bit of content from every media person on the internet.
I do understand why people complain about social media and search engines who cross a lot of 1st amendment lines because I think there's an ethical side of it that is too complex and nuanced to discuss, well, any message board ever. But mgoblog is a boutique/has a niche/synergistic market authenticity subgroup beta dimension/[insert any MBA word for a small business that nobody uses in real life]. So personally I'm thankful that this site actually puts an honest effort into making sure there is good faith and intellectual honesty for the most part.
February 18th, 2022 at 3:09 PM ^
perfectly said.
i guess this is a freep thing. i frankly don't get that the anti-freep thing still exists, but if cutting it also means there's less chance of me seeing finebaum or barstool crap? cut it. with extreme predudice. and yes, i know that those things aren't necessarily related.
there are lots and lots (and lots, and LOTS) of places to share whatever michigan shit you want to share. most of them are free, as is this one. one of the reasons i pay a few bucks a month here is the curation of the board...well, the attempted curation, let's be honest, and that's not a criticism.
let's be honest - editing for content in a way that everyone agrees with is fundamentally impossible, and, while i'm sure i don't agree with every "curation" that happens, i'm glad it does, and i'm glad it errs on the side of anti-barstool. you like barstool stuff? or freep stuff? go there.
posting freep stuff, knowing that there's a clear freep firewall, then complaining that it got deleted? is that the argument here?
February 18th, 2022 at 3:46 PM ^
No private company has ever “crossed 1st amendment lines”.
February 18th, 2022 at 4:55 PM ^
Not gonna lie, the whole taking stuff out of context thing is really getting exhausting.
February 19th, 2022 at 12:13 PM ^
The whole “words mean whatever I want them to, as long as I throw around meaningless buzzwords” is getting pretty exhausting.
explain the context then. Cause you said you understand that complaint. But it’s not a thing.
February 18th, 2022 at 12:04 PM ^
I mean it’s not like this is even original content. The Rainer guy was just aggregating, plenty of other places to find it.
Don’t know if he’s ever even broken actual Michigan news.
February 18th, 2022 at 10:53 AM ^
What you consider "vengeful" is, to others, reasonable discretion.
I may not agree with all the mods' decisions. I doubt anyone here agrees with all the mods' decisions. I betcha the mods themselves don't agree with all their own decisions.
However, they do a lot to make this a site we enjoy, and don't have time to engage in long discussions about each decision.
February 18th, 2022 at 4:35 PM ^
If you love the mods so much, why don't you marry them?
jk - I love the mods too
February 18th, 2022 at 10:53 AM ^
They're banned for a reason, and that reason is usually that they have made stuff up in the past. If there's news, a respectable source will provide an article as well and you can link that.
February 18th, 2022 at 10:53 AM ^
The board belongs to MGoBlog. They can do what they want. We can choose to participate or not.
February 18th, 2022 at 10:58 AM ^
I agree with that mostly, but didn't we all help make this blog what it is now? Does that make it ours too, to some extent?
In any case, I have no problem with trash getting thrown out. As another poster above said, if the information is good an article from a creditable source will become available to link to.
February 18th, 2022 at 11:11 AM ^
"In any case, I have no problem with trash getting thrown out."
And therein lies the problem. Who decides what is trash? Not in general terms where perhaps a consensus can be arrived upon but in specific cases. In this case, the people who decide are the people who own the website.
February 18th, 2022 at 10:58 AM ^
Exactly right. This blog has tremendous reach so every article linked is being given a huge potential audience for their content. It is absolutely within the rights of the owner of this free blog to withhold that benefit from those they deem to be either unethical, outright liars or those who have a clear and obvious negative agenda towards the University of Michigan.
Edit because I couldnt resist:
"I agree with that mostly, but didn't we all help make this blog what it is now? Does that make it ours too, to some extent?"
Not in the least. Just like reading CNN or Fox news didnt make you one of the owners. It made you one of their customers.
February 18th, 2022 at 11:04 AM ^
Agreed entirely. MGoBlog isn't special because of us, it's the writers and coverage they give us for free
February 18th, 2022 at 4:13 PM ^
It's a good point. I would amend it slightly to say that "MGoBlog isn't special just (emphasis mine) because of us". The personalities and commentaries on the board are just one of the things that make this place awesome.
February 18th, 2022 at 11:05 AM ^
Fox, CNN, MGoBlog don't exist without their customers.
I'm not saying it gives us ownership, but there's definitely a relationship there in which we benefit the owners and therefore have influence.
February 18th, 2022 at 11:13 AM ^
"I agree with that mostly, but didn't we all help make this blog what it is now? Does that make it ours too, to some extent?"
The word "ours" is a first-person, personal pronoun. Again, you are confusing your relationship as a customer with that of ownership. Yes, companies (and MgoBlog is certainly a company) depend on customers for their livelyhood. But that dependence does not confir ownership and decision making authority onto the customer - that resides solely in the hands of ownership.
Your choice is to stay or go - you have absolutely no say in anything else. Just like buying a Big Mac doesnt give you a vote to change the secret sauce, being a reader/contributor here doesnt give you a vote to change who is and who is not allowed to be linked to.
February 18th, 2022 at 11:15 AM ^
I explained what I meant by ours. Said I don't mean ownership. I understand your point. My point is also not hard to understand.
February 18th, 2022 at 11:26 AM ^
I also don't think your point is hard to understand. But coherency doesn't equate validity.
You're playing in someone else's backyard. They own the sandbox. They make the rules. Regardless of how great your comments or posts are, that interaction, doesn't change the "relationship." You're the visitor, they're the owner. We're afforded the ability, within reason, to object to the rules, or potentially ask for exception, but we don't make the rules.
My read (my read only), is this conversation is actually about entitlement. I don't believe anyone here, regardless of how long they've been on the board, how many comments they've made, how many dollars they've thrown at beveled guilt, etc., should feel "entitled" to the idea that they get to dictate how it's run, or what rules do or do not exist. Even if those rules aren't based in logic, or you have the absolute best air-tight "reason" for why a rule should or shouldn't exist. None of that matters.
It's not a relationship. It's an interaction.
February 18th, 2022 at 11:43 AM ^
They own the playground.
The collectie "we" own the community.
February 18th, 2022 at 11:27 AM ^
Yes, your point is easy to understand; it's also a point with which people are choosing to disagree.
You are a "poster", not an owner.
February 18th, 2022 at 12:27 PM ^
Agreed. I'm not an owner, I don't feel entitled to anything, let alone dictating content. "Ours" wasn't a good word choice. But I did also say "to some extent." The "ours" and "extent" I intended was conveyed better by the poster above who said "the community is ours". My intent was to refer to the relationship between the owners and the community.
February 18th, 2022 at 2:55 PM ^
You can throw as many words, carefully crafted ones, as you want into the ether. "Relationship" is your word of the moment around which you're trying to rally support. Nice, polite word, BTW.
Regardless, the point remains that you (and I) are not owners, we are posters who type on personal devices and our words appear in this forum, which forum is *owned and controlled by others* --- to an extent equalling 100 percent ownership by not you or I.
If you come into my seafood restaurant and tell me that you want Angus beef on the menu or you want us to be Vegan, politely explaining that you want a say, to "some extent" on what I serve? That, as a patron you form a "community of patrons" and said community wants a say in what I serve? I will thank you for expressing your desires the first time or two you mention it, but politely decline.
If you persist in your "community expressions" past a certain point, the conversation will end with my reminding you that you have a choice of other restaurants to patronize, several probably serving Angus, several others being Vegan. I will then do my best to insure that your seafood meal is one of best you have ever had.
February 18th, 2022 at 6:13 PM ^
If you want to ignore your patrons, yeah....you can do that. I think most business owners don't do that because they'd like to stay in business.
You're conflating me, one user, with the community of MGoUsers. If you don't think the owners are sensitive to what they hear from the community, and make adjustments accordingly, then yeah....probably don't need to continue this discussion.
February 18th, 2022 at 7:08 PM ^
May I suggest the scallops?
:-)
February 18th, 2022 at 12:16 PM ^
No. But you could ponder the musical question.
February 18th, 2022 at 1:02 PM ^
It’s actually a fairly simple decision, musically. If you stay, there will be trouble. If you go, there will be double.
Obviously, stay, to avoid twice as much trouble. Duh.
February 18th, 2022 at 3:41 PM ^
that's absolutely correct, in that yes, readers benefit the owners of the site, and yes, have influence. that doesn't mean the readers have any more power than the power of the purse, so to speak.
the owners of this site make decisions about content every single day. that's kinda the definition of "managing editor." if they choose to ignore a meaningful portion of their customers, then those customers will go elsewhere, for a better experience.
those customers do not, at this moment, appear to be going anywhere, or if they do it's probably not because links to free press stuff gets deleted.
February 18th, 2022 at 4:18 PM ^
Rupert Murdoch could pay for every Fox to stay on the air indefinitely without receiving a penny in ad revenue. He is essentially doing that with the primetime lineup as it is. The majority of their commercial time is sold to other Fox properties.
And to be clear, we are not the customers of Fox, CNN or MGoBlog. They are selling access to us to advertisers.
February 18th, 2022 at 11:06 AM ^
Obviously Brian, Seth and the gang are getting filthy rich with this blog so, as sorta co-creators, we should get a cut of all that money.
February 18th, 2022 at 11:10 AM ^
My understanding is that, for every 5,000 mgopoints you accrue, Brian or Seth will come to your house one night and do the dishes.
February 18th, 2022 at 11:12 AM ^
What!
Really??
How many points to clean my bathroom?
February 18th, 2022 at 11:16 AM ^
What do I get with my points?
February 18th, 2022 at 12:18 PM ^
Unfortunately for you, once you hit 1 million points (how?!?), you transition beyond normal readership: you are now part of the cleaning crew for 5000-point houses in your area.
February 18th, 2022 at 1:06 PM ^
he got 1,000,000 points for cleaning Seth's house lol
February 18th, 2022 at 3:06 PM ^
An extended auto warranty on a car you've never owned? :-)
February 18th, 2022 at 12:08 PM ^
Logged in just to upvote this. Gotta start working on getting to 5,000 so they can come wash my dishes, they're piling up!
February 18th, 2022 at 12:29 PM ^
And for every -5000 points you rack up on trips to Bolivia, you have to come babysit their kids
February 18th, 2022 at 4:40 PM ^
I wouldn't want Pony Conquerer baby sitting my kids...not alone my Pony.
February 18th, 2022 at 11:45 AM ^
Yeah, like NIL for blog posters!
February 18th, 2022 at 11:49 AM ^
mGrow-
When you pass, which by all practical accounts should be relatively soon considering your advanced age and your exhausting attempts to keep pace with your considerably younger and more attractive wife.
Please make arrangements in your will for us on the blog to be made aware so that your insights/posts utilizing logic, reason and accountability simply do not disappear.
Perhaps like Obi-Wan Kenobi you will become far more powerful in death then you ever appeared on Blog!
February 18th, 2022 at 10:56 AM ^
I didn't see the original post so I checked the mod action sticky and see that it was an article by Sabin basically copy/pasting a transcript of the In The Trenches podcast, or as some may call it "stealing." So given the writer I would say to your question:
LOL NO!
If you want to have a discussion about what was said, several other outlets have written articles about the podcast appearance, or hell there's the podcast itself, make a thread about any of those, just kindly F Rainer Sabin with a rusty pole.
For example, here is Zach Shaw writing for The Michigan Insider with a free article about the podcast appearance: https://247sports.com/college/michigan/Article/Jim-Harbaugh-not-sorry-for-exploring-NFL-options-returning-to-Michigan-football-coach-2022-183027213/