Timofte & Blogs - Together At Last...

Hiya All,

As promised a few weeks back (apologies for our tardiness) here is the link to the excellent article on Daniel Timofte from the Sunday Tribune a few years ago. To anyone who missed the show, Timofte missed the 5th Romanian penalty against Ireland in the 2nd round of the World Cup in 1990. Dave O'Leary cooly won the match to spark a massive party...
http://tinyurl.com/2zokxq

I've been rumaging around the internet today, reading some football posts and it drives me mad sometimes. What - these guys whose only purpose in life is to go onto a blog and post a comment of "lazy journalism", "what would X know" and various combinations of "you're stupid" etc.
Our blog hasn't been going long, and thankfully we don't write about anything too controversial, but to be honest, we expected a lot of flames and cheap shots, especially for the podcast, what with our drinking, cursing and libel.
You might argue that professional websites should expect some criticism, and I would agree. And blogs should too. But too often it descends into petty oneupmanship that is the bane of the interent.

You can see 2 examples of what I'm talking about here.
1 From the Guardian today, Steve Claridge's scouting report, the first 10 comments are illuminating. (and yes, that is my username)
http://blogs.guardian.co.uk/sport/2007/07/10/scouting_report_frantisek_rajt.html
2 From http://101greatgoals.com, the best blog of it's type on the net, and the guys who run seem to put in an awful amount of work. The comments 1, 2 and 5 are pathetic
http://101greatgoals.com/2007/07/05/lost-in-translation/#comments

I have read many articles that although the amount of blogs is increasing, the amount of people stopping is also great. The main factors are time and the constant sniping. Female bloggers are constantly harassed if they hold political opinions, numerous police complaints have been filed. (http://www.salon.com/mwt/broadsheet/2007/03/28/kathy_sierra/index.html)

To clarify, I have no problem with disagreement or with constructive criticism, and maybe you could say that the insults are all for a bit of fun, but frankly, I could do without it...

Anyone agree with me?

Mark