A couple of days ago, I wrote about a thread on HFBoards that I thought was really good, a thread highly critical of the blogosphere in general. It's gotten pretty funny, though.

Replacement: "The overreaction on Lowetides blog is both interesting and possibly revealing."

"That thread is a classic example and people are lining up to suck on Lowetides tit in that thread. (with apologies to Lowetide) Rut really how interesting or informative is it to read 55 posts saying "please keep writing, we love ya anyway, don't listen to those hf _ _ _ _ _ s
With this being *provoked* by nothing at all. It seems some just want a reason to comment unfavorably on this board and any excuse will do."

"Go back to Lowetide's blog and see if you can reconcile your specific comments with what is going on there.

It seems that many there, and yourself for some reason, are choosing to describe what occurred here as an attack.

Is that a mature level of response?"

Giant Moo: Still, I read through the whole thread again from the top, and I am still surprised at the reaction the "oilogosphere" took to my opinions. I would say it is terribly thin-skinned to react with such vitriol to the idea that I like someone's blog, but I don't like the baseball references. Suddenly that's morphed into "someone at HFBoards wants LT to stop posting", which is blatantly false. I think most of those people know it's wrong, but the mob was already out, torches in hand, trying to Google my address, and we all know mob mentality is a dangerous thing. The furor whipped up really makes me wonder about the comments that said "who cares about them?"... apparently, the "oilogosphere" certainly does. I think I touched a very raw nerve with my comments about narcissism.

Raoul Duke: "Seems to me a couple comments that weren't even harsh criticisms set off this "blogosphere", which in essence proved their point. It was just saying their personal preferences of a blog - borderline constructive criticism at best - and all of a sudden there's this huge scorn going on that comment page for HF."

Now, I should say at this juncture that both Replacement and Raoul Duke are commenters at HFBoards that I've previously read, and whose opinions I've found to be generally insightful, and that both seem like pretty reasonable guys. I don't know Giant Moo from Bill Berg, but he could be of the same sort, for all I know.

But that's just a funny reaction. I can agree that nobody was attacking Lowetide, as I pointed out in the comments section on his blog, but there were certainly attacks being launched by some of the guys at HFBoards. Going back to the first page of the thread, Dashing Silver Fox posted a link to an article David Staples wrote about my move to OilersNation, and called it interesting. Here's what happened immediately after (bolding mine, and please note that I've only highlighted portions relevant to my point- feel free to read the whole thing yourselves):

Giant Moo: The item you linked to is kind of like discussion about a soap opera. Except instead of fictional characters, it's people talking all about themselves and their small group. Who is writing for which blog? Will their blog be the bloggiest? Who has the most cleverest pen name? Blog blog blog.

After reading who Staples interviewed, it looks like I know one of the people behind Oilers Nation from school (and his brother). I think he's a great guy and I hope he does well. But that doesn't change my general distaste for narcissism so prevalent in the "blogosphere"

Dashing Silver Fox: There is indeed a self congratulatory network of folks who have anointed themselves the all knowing priests of hockey based on stats that would make the Jesuit pursuit of "how many angels can dance on the head of a pin" look like an empty search for the fountain of youth.

I don't want to start another storm here, but they have convinced themselves Horcoff is a top ten centre in the league despite an overwhelming amount of evidence to the contrary. But, like any piece of conventional wisdom, if it's repeated often enough, especially in a small circle of like minds, it becomes the gospel and can only be questioned under the threat of burning at the stake.

Having said that, there are some very acute minds, MC79 and Mirtle come to mind, who also have some perspective and a view of the big picture.

The blogosphere is an emerging source of valuable information, partially due to the lack of real journalism evident among MSM sports reporters, but there are also huge red flags that need to be raised because, other than folks like Mirtle, they have none of the constraints that MSM face daily.

Now there's lots more, but that should be sufficient for my point. If someone is going to take offensive cheapshots at the blogosphere in general (without identifying who they're targetting), they really shouldn't be surprised when folks commenting on the blogs take cheapshots at HFBoards in general (without identifying who they're targetting).

You poke a hornets nest by talking about how close-minded, narcissistic, and wrong this self-congratulatory group of people are, and then there's surprise when there's a reaction?

Now, it's a silly argument, and there's good stuff on both the boards and in the blogs, and frankly I've never understood the level of hostility that the two sides have for each other, given that they serve similar purposes. I like criticism; it makes me rethink my positions and reconsider my statements, and frankly I, like most everybody else, need to spend time on self-examination if I'm ever going to improve.

That said, it's disingenuous for either side to act completely innocent. When a guy like DSF starts a thread with an innocuous statment and then two comments in unleashes a tirade at the subject, you have to wonder if he didn't have an axe to grind all along and wasn't just waiting for an excuse.

Pot, Kettle. Kettle, Pot.