Geoff Decker’s whereIstand blog

Well, the system ain’t flawless but I still maintain it’s the best one we got for ensuring that user-generated content is reliable and representative of a public figure’s opinion.

Recently, there was a spurt of opinions on the issue, Is Michael Jordan the greatest basketball player of all time?

First of all this is a surprisingly lopsided issue, as far as the whereIstand community is concerned. Not a single rebellious spirit — and there’s usually at least a couple, even for lopsided ones like this one — had checked off ‘no’ in answer to this question. 17 members…all MJ lovers. Not a huge sample size, but I guess it goes to show you how much people like to anoint someone above all others.

It’s as effective if you’re an active athlete though. How else to explain that two whereIstand members are holding out on anointing Tiger Woods a GOAT? I think people enjoy looking back on achievements with greater admiration than when they witnessing it in the moment. (more…)

A more enduring question, Should military academies permit athletes to forgo active duty to play professional sports?

The Army originally endorsed the sentiment, citing Campbell’s value as a public relations and recruiting tactic high school men and women interested in attending the West Point Military Academy. But they recently reneged:

The Army on Wednesday officially informed Campbell, a second lieutenant, and the Lions that he would be required to serve at least two years on active duty before he could apply to be released.

Clearly, this issue goes beyond just debating the marketing, academic and athletic debate. It’s tense with political overtones (or is it ‘undertones’?), especially because we are at war. It will be interesting to see what opinion, if any, politicians will express on this. If you want to know a specific opinion, like say that of the presidential candidates, you can always request it.

The controversy around maple bats used in Major League Baseball popped up earlier in the season and it looks like Bud Selig is taking a preemptive approach to this issue. Friday morning’s New York Times’ Jack Curry reported that a study into broken bats and the safety risk of them is already kicking ass and taking names:

Over the last three weeks, every bat in Major League Baseball that has shattered, chipped, cracked or smashed during a game has been collected so that it can be analyzed, part of a continuing heightened effort to deal with the safety concerns caused by the proliferation of broken bats.

According to the report, which started July 2nd, 257 bats have been broken in 260 games. The broken bats, as ordered by MLB, is being collected and examined by authenticators to determine whether or not companies should abide by stricter qualifications when making bats.

Although Curry only refers to “maple bats” once in the report the study was clearly prompted by the idea that the specific type of wood is responsible for sharper, more frequent breaks in bats. (more…)

I’m not surprised by anything he says anymore, but Michael Savage’s comments about autistic children are clearly very painful to a great many people. I quickly got an understanding for how hateful and offensive his radio show can be when I began posting evidence of his opinions on whereIstand. The biggest source for my evidence was Media Matters, which monitors “conservative misinformation” in the U.S. media. Naturally, a lot of the quotes used were very incendiary:

Savage on same-sex couples raising children:

“You know what? I’m very sorry for your children. I think it’s child abuse for you to raise children. And I don’t mean to insult you personally, but this is a large cultural issue. The society is collapsing. Marriage is a fragile institution and I think you’re making a mockery of it in this manner by doing this.”

(more…)

The first attempt to rank the accuracy of sports media personalities was a success! Surprise, surprise: sports bloggers enjoyed the opportunity to have a laugh at ESPN’s expense. Then again, ESPN personalities did take up six of the bottom eight positions in the ranking.

This edition of the rankings welcomes a slew of prominent sports writers: Carl Bialik (WSJ.com), Will Leitch (New York Magazine), Joe Posnanski (Kansas City Star), Jeff Passan (Yahoo! Sports), Joe Sheehan (Baseball Prospectus), Tim Marchman (NY Sun) and Alex Belth (SI.com and Baseball Toaster). The source for these predictions was Bialik’s “2008 Seasonlong Baseball Contest“. (more…)

Pretty cool article on WSJ.com about the report I published on this blog about the predictions that whereIstand.com aggregates. Considering that the author, Carl Bialik, is a statistician and valedictorian of Yale (according to his wikipedia page), I half-expected him to rip apart the scoring system I devised for the accuracy rankings. Turns out, he more or less gave me his approval.

I learned in the article that Bialis actually has been doing something quite similar to this, with his “2008 Seasonlong Baseball Contest“, which allows both readers and prominent baseball writers to make their predictions on issues ranging from the conventional to unconventional. (more…)

Jesus Christ just had his second opinion approved on whereIstand.com! He now believes that no fault marriage shouldn’t be available to couples and that there is inequality among those in Heaven.

At the risk of offending a lot of people and pissing off my Catholic parents, this got me thinking that if the opinions of a character from The Bible can be posted, why can’t whereIstand also have opinions profiles of fictional public figures? Like, for instance, Holdon Caulfield…or Homer Simpson.

(disclaimer: I’m not making the statement that The Bible is fiction, so please don’t interpret it as such.) (more…)

If you sense a flaw in logic somewhere in the process by which a team is determined to have home-field advantage during the World Series, you’re not the only one. Players and coaches have been especially outspoken about a rule that Bud Selig and Major League Baseball instituted for the midseason classic back in 2003, which was created to prevent another tie.

“This time it matters!” is what the league boasted following this decision.

“Bullshit!” replied its players and coaches. (more…)

The unpopular relocation of the Seattle SuperSonics will make for an intriguing storyline next season.

First of all, politically speaking, the two cities are on the opposite end of the spectrum. Seattle is one of country’s bastions for liberalism and Oklahoma City, was once ranked the 22nd most conservative city in the country. (possibly related sidenote: a friend of mine who used to live there hated the fact that most beer had an alcohol content of something like 4.0%)

Second of all, Sonics coaches and players themselves, both former and current have expressed harsh sentiments about the move. (more…)

One of the challenges on whereIstand is approving issues quickly enough to keep up with the 24-hour news cycle. All of our issues must be collaborated upon by a handful of members, including a combination of editors, power users and the people who originally proposed the question. It’s a process that can at times be frustrating, but it ultimately ensures that issues will be reasonable for debate, clearly worded, free from bias…kind of like a polling question.

This was a complaint from a journalist friend of mine who was on the site and wanted to take a stand on whether or not Tim Russert’s death merited the media coverage it received. He said, “You guys were squabbling over whether or not to use ‘merit’ or ‘appropriate’. Just approve the damn thing!”

Fair point. Ironically enough, considering the essence of the debate, as soon as we approved it, the issue fell out of the news cycle and lost relevance.

So it’s a challenge. And we could be faced with something similar with the newly approved sports issue, Should Brett Favre come out of retirement? (more…)