Remind me never to mention here when I’m going to be out for the day. Especially when I’m going to be at a place that bans Internet access.
Today’s trollfest may be the single most embarrassing comment thread in the history of the blog. But I think order has been restored. At least for the moment.
Get The Picture 
Can’t you block them via IP address? Your homie Thomas Brown was in rare form today. He might have broken his keyboard with all the sock puppetry going on.
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BTW I hope you enjoyed the Masters. Easily one of the top sporting events I have ever attended.
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My fourth trip. Had the usual fantastic time.
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My “trolling” was meant to be good nature ribbing. Sorry if I offended. Just jealous.
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holy shit just read half the comment thread from your earlier post. See what you’re talking about now and it’s (hopefully) not me.
Wow.
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Surely you are handing out some IP bans, right? I think in general you should err on the side of letting people speak their minds, because it’s not always easy to distinguish a ‘troll’ from a reasonable person who disagrees with you, and for political, social and financial issues it is important that all sides be represented.
But who cares if a few jerks who don’t like Mark Richt get banned? What is the danger? That people might mistakenly believe Richt is a better coach than he is? Who cares?
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It’s just another example of Mark Richt’s lack of discipline. That’s why we’ll never win a national championship.
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Y ru always censoring us bro? !?!?!?! It’s amazing the lengths you Richt apologists will go to ignore the fact that he. Can. Not. Pick a championship qb!!!!!!
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Per your standards, the coaches that decided to start Peyton Manning, Johnny Manziel and Robert Griffin failed.
Defense wins championships more often than quarterbacks.
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Ouch! Easy on the facts holic.
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Turn your cellphone OFF at The Master’s.
Turn your sarcasm detector ON at Get The Picture.
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Charlie Ward, David Greene, DJ Shockley
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You saw a great Masters. Spieth was up to the task, even with the big names chasing him. I really enjoyed it.
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No offense Senator, but this was likely more a result of your intolerance of opposing opinions than you taking the day off. Hopefully, you can adapt a little and become a more open minded person. I doubt anyone attempted to embarrass you. The other thing is, I think it was all done in a comical way to try and entertain each other. But letting people attack 1 side, letting them post pictures, letting a bunch of sock puppets agree with each other, these are regular here on the blog, just today, the other side got a bit more action using the same techniques.
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“…letting a bunch of sock puppets agree with each other”
WTF?! I pity you Ed nauseam.
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I’m just saying the sort of things I mentioned happens every week on this blog and I never recall the Senator saying he felt embarrassed by any of those type of things when it was an optimistic posters/majority viewpoint ganging up on pessimistic posters/minority viewpoint. But when the script flipped, and the pessimist posters/minority viewpoint verbally ganged up on the optimistic posters/majority viewpoint, the Senator felt embarrassed. I have to conclude by his reaction the Senator feels only optimistic views help his team. Obviously, that’s not the case. The team has not really had a great year in quite some time despite all the overly positive blogging from the UGA blogoshpere.
When the Senator starting speaking out against the regime’s cheapness in salaries and facility investments, and other UGA oriented blogs did, things changed fast. I agreed with his stance there. So the best way to help the team is not blowing smoke up their pipe but unclogging the pipe.
Some UGA blogs somewhere are going to have to do the same to help our coaches get to the next level. We’re going to have to start asking the hard questions regarding the lack of championships. We also need to offer solutions backed by some statistics or facts.
If the engine is malfunctioning, don’t tell me my vehicle is running great. Tell me what’s wrong, and how to fix it.
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Jake, you sound hideous.
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+1
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+1 (priceless, gastri)
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I just laughed so loudly that my family is now concerned about me.
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“minority viewpoint verbally ganged up on the optimistic posters/majority viewpoint”
Dude, you’re not fooling anybody. It takes more than one person to constitute a gang.
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Sockpuppets? I do not think the word means what you think it means.
Thanks for my morning chuckle.
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“You ate the last chuckle!”
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Well, at one time you were talking about an open comment thread…. 😉
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Doesn’t reflect badly on you, Senator, as much as it does them. Cts will be cts.
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After reading the open thread about G-Day, I am now convinced that Aaron Murray was a POS, Richt will be fired after next season, and there is no intrinsic value in watching any future UGA football games. I am a lost soul.
But seriously…no need for embarrassment, Senator. It only underscores that a few assclowns really do live day by day searching for fleeting moments to piss in others’ Corn Flakes while they’re not looking. And it only reinforces the sadness I feel for them. Great weather in Athens. As you wrote, very “typical” feeling spring game. Some nice young talent on defense. Hope McKenzie and Mitchell heal up quickly.
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This ^
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I am sorry you have to deal with such childish trolls.
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Oh wow. Now I have to go look. Or scratch that, ill go to bed and check for the g day thread tomorrow….
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I don’t know, Senator. I could see letting those idiots have their run of the place like once a month or something. Some of their posts are unintentionally hilarious, while the troll-identifiers’ posts are often intentionally hilarious.
I don’t think it got to the level of the old AJC comment threads, anyway, but it was funny.
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I don’t understand why so many people thought it was Thas Brn. There weren’t any book length comments.
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Not sure if it was TB, but u can always identify this parisite by his frothing hatred for AM over Mett and his references to inane stats that prove (PROVE!) CMR is literally the worst HC in the lower 48.
I always enjoy tweaking him with the Stinchcomb rushing statistic.
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Senator, the trolls are getting worse and worse at this point. The fact that this guy brings up Mett as evidence that Richt can’t pick a QB is the most ridiculous comment of all. Richt’s decision to kick one of his secretaries’ son off the team and a kid he had pretty much known all of his life had to be the most difficult decision he made as a head coach and leader.
On the Masters, hope you had a great time. I was there on Friday, and it was spectacular. I thought Spieth’s best round of the week was Friday. No one was making big moves on the leader board, and he shot a blemish-free 66.
I still say the UGA AA could go learn a few lessons on crowd management and fan experience from Billy Payne and his guys at Augusta National.
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True. At Augusta, I know I can leave the earplugs in the car.
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🙂 – well played. You don’t stand in line for 45 minutes to get a Coke or go to a restroom that is disgusting either.
They do all of that with volunteers and people who work there for one week. They know how to treat the patrons and the patrons are respectful in return.
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I think everyone saw through the posters early and reacted accordingly. I just skipped through and read those posters that were familiar to this blog. Everyone knew you were in “No access” land and nothing got hurt. Onward and upward. No need for apologies, Bluto, and if you ever begin to take the “suppression of speech” comments seriously, gimme an uptick. If my being on here isn’t a good enough witness to defend such largess of comment then I don’t know what could.
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P.S., fuck’em if they can’t take a joke.
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I’d like to add my voice to the “No need for apologies, Bluto” choir.
Sometimes we need a reminder of how we acted when we, as a teenagers drank our first beer. No harm done as far as I’m concerned.
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Glad you had a good time at the Masters. I’m not even a golf fan and I always enjoy it. No need for apologies or to feel embarrassed. You are taking ownership of something that should be shouldered by a few misguided folks who clearly live for their moment to pounce and saw their opportunity yesterday, as someone said, it was clear early on what was up. I watched the first quarter of the G day telecast last night and I didn’t see near the cause for alarm that some commenters seemed to feel. I sure hope McKenzie’s hamstring isn’t a nagging thing because that kid looks like the real thing as a wr now. I couldn’t stay up for all of it so missed what happened to Mitchell. But as for this place yesterday, chalk it up to Mark Richt losing control of the trolls at gtp.
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The great thing about the Masters is that you don’t have to be a golf fan to appreciate it.
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As I said yesterday, I had no idea how much of your work came AFTER composing and posting your articles, ie, the level of maintenance involved in keeping this site running smoothly. You have my respect, my admiration, and my sympathy.
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Bluto, I have said this before, but I fear it is true…the trollfest yesterday was a direct result, I suspect, of the popularity of this blog, has nothing to do with the free speech bullshit.
The sad truth is you can’t really keep the “serious” trolls out, all you can do is lop off the sockpuppeteers when you can.
An alternative, I guess, is to create a log-in portal, which does not do much for the spontaneous nature of the blog.
Hope you enjoy loping off puppet heads, I fear it will only get worse.
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If trolling gets to be too much, I’ll consider doing something.
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As a blogger myself, I’ve struggled with the troll issue, and have resolved to take action only against those who clearly have nothing better to do than to attack the blogger’s every utterance and poison the conversation with incessant, content-free or redundant nastiness. It’s the form and context, not “disagreement,” that’s the issue.
And besides: this is your blog, not a friggin’ public utility, so why should you have to put up with commenters who constantly rely on ad hominem attacks on you and on good-faith commenters?
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I know. It’s just that I’m a believer in people being allowed to speak freely. It makes for a better comments section. But it does leave the door open for abuse like that thread.
Your point about form and context vs. disagreement is spot on. Even the trolls know that.
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Heard they went up on beer this year. True? How much? Last time I went in O 10 BEER WAS $2.00 EGG SALAD $1.50 very reasonable.
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Beer was $4 this year. Egg salad was still bland and still cost $1.50
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Would making this a pay site weed out a lot of the trolling? Seems like it would. When Jason Isbell first went solo he made the statement the people going to the trouble to seek out his shows were probably “bigger fans of my songs when I was in Driveby Truckers than they were Patterson’s or Cooley’s. I don’t think people are gone pay money to heckle me.” Perhaps that applies to blogs too.
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I have a much better appreciation for your blog and how you manage it.( Not that I wasn’t a big fan before)
Thanks for keeping the wolves at bay.
GATA!
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