I was invited to the BBH by Terry, who reached out to me on the BBWC. He was also looking to get the word to Boog, who had at that time dissapeared into the mountains north of Worcester, MA, while persuing his Masters Degree, and was not to be found on-line.
I regularly visit the BBWC. I just visit the BBH first. There is plenty of duplication, but there are also plenty of posters at the BBWC who are worth reading, and who do NOT post on the BBH. However, there is a definite difference in the tone of the two boards, and I think I know why, but I'll get to that in a moment.
I think that what we have here at the BBH is special (many thanks to Mighty and the Mods) for a few simple reasons. We all comment on the Respect given from member to member, the Intelligence that we display when interacting with each other, the Civility we extend even when the topics become heated, and the Honesty in our fandome of the New York Football Giants (we are R.I.C.H. because of this). And, we are right to do so. But what we are commenting upon is the symptom, not the cause.
To get to the cause we need to ask not why we are R.I.C.H., but why the other boards are not? I think there are two major reasons: (1) There are fewer chest-thumping braggarts, who by virtue of immaturity can not recognize opinions other than their own as valid. And, (2) there are no direct links to sites from fans of other football teams.
In the case of reason number 1, I think that the profound lack of low-character, internet brawlers among us stems originally from the selective manner that many, if not most of us arrived: by direct invitation. But it is maintained because we are not actively reaching out through popular avenues to the largest possible audience in hopes of bringing in as many "hits" as possible, to support our advertisers.
It's like casting a net on the Amazon. We'll likely catch some beautiful and exotic fish. But we will just as likely haul in a tangle of vicious piranhas as well. Then, we'll all have to endure their snapping and biting and thrashing about, until they can be evicted, carefully, one by one. In the mean time several of us will certainly be bitten.
But, since there are no advertisers to appease, we slip quietly down a relatively small stream without having to raise the kind of "look at us" ruckus that would certainly attract the braggarts and otherwise maturity-challenged denizens of the cyber-world, while attempting to simply pay the bills.
If we would enter into the larger, main stream, we would almost certainly attract the attention of the unwanted as well as those who would become welcome additions. So, we need to ask ourselves: do we want to risk the piranhas or not?
On the second reason, the BBWC is a member of the Scout organization. A little tile on every webpage that part of Scout links the BBWC to every other Scout web site. Since Scout hosts websites for most of the NFL teams, there is always a lighted path that directs fans of other teams directly to the BBWC.
I'd like to think that every team has a core of good natured, mature and respectable people in their fan base. But I think we all know that every "river" has it's piranhas, doesn't it?
In my experience, the most heated, least civilized and immature arguments on the BBWC occur when chest-thumping idiots butt heads with opposition fans who come trolling for a fight. If the broad channels that allow this trolling were to be shut off, then the trolls who used them would have to look harder for their opportunities. Most of them simply don't have the patience to persue their trivial goals that far. They give up, and move toward easier avenues of childish diversion.
There was one other reason that the early days of the BBH remained blissfully free of braggarts and trolls: The original name was the Big Blue Gentlemens Crew. I think that most people probably assumed that this was some kind of upscale strip-club site.
Normally porn is a fabulous attractor on the internet. But, since we are "Gentlemen", and the site doesn't scream "College Girls Behaving Badly", the porn mongers just kept on surfing by.
I like things the way they are. I don't know how we can bring in more people without risking a replay of the BBWC situation. But right now, I have to go log onto CGBB and get my fix before lunch.
pagan43
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