FanPost

How to Talking Chop - a Beginners Guide

Hello everyone!

I thought I'd assemble some of the things I've learned in my time participating on this baseball blog as a resource for new members, aspiring commenters, and even grizzled veterans who wish to brush up on their skills.

First things first - I suppose you'd like to learn how to post.

To do that, scroll directly to the bottom of any Talking Chop story to load the comments. Do not click any of the advertisements because this gives them money that could be used to speed the deployment of CORAL. I'm actually not sure what CORAL deployment means but it is the worst. We should all fear it. It is best to avoid reading the actual articles as well because they are full of spoilers for the conversations you will soon be having. At the very bottom of the page you should see the Post a new comment area. Enter your text into either the Subject or Body area but try not to use both (you will look like a fancy pants). Go ahead and type something clever like "DFA Duvall" and click POST. A countdown timer will begin, and before it reaches zero you can edit your original text to remove any mistakes or misspellings you may have made. But don't!

Instead, you should click REPLY and write a new post containing any updates you wish to make. This is better because it adds a reply, and it is increasingly accepted that posts with replies usually end up getting the most replies. There are other benefits to mastering this technique. Widely respected member OmarReborn has been able to leverage self reply to establish himself as an acknowledged source of insight about the Packers and possibly hockey as well. This is especially impressive when you consider he's done all that in just 5 years.

Once you've gotten a few posts under your belt and maybe even started a thread or two, you may notice some of the other posts have a blue background. This is because they are better than yours.

To make your posts better as well, you should have your coworkers create accounts and click the rec button which appears below the text. Doing so is called rec'ing and getting recs and is generally considered the top thing one can do on Talking Chop. Note - there is currently a bug where you cannot rec your own posts even once but I imagine they're hard at work on a fix for that.

When it comes to getting recs from people other than yourself, your alternate accounts, and the accounts you told your friends and coworkers to make, you should understand that your popularity is far more important than your content. It is difficult and time consuming to build up your reputation over time, so consider changing your username to a slight variation of someone more popular. For example - EclecticATLFan, Starhawk, and Dan Uggla's Foreskin are all probably still available. Once people begin to mistake you for an established commenter, then this becomes possible:

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If a misspelling of a more popular member's username is not available, or you wish to build your own reputation or simply make friends for some reason, consider announcing yourself with a new FanPost. In it, you could make the case that one should always bunt with runners on base and less than two outs in late innings. Or that the time has finally come to acquire more pitching. It doesn't matter really. People will see your username just below the front page and some small portion of them will become convinced that you are some big muckedy muck from the Talking Chop website. Again, consider having family members, friends, and coworkers recommend your fanpost as this will increase its visibility.

It is commonly believed that the best way to participate in online forums is to treat people with respect and engage in thoughtful discussions offering reasoned opinions supported by evidence whenever possible. This is false. Instead, pick a post at random and ask yourself "OK, how can I shit all over this one?" If there are no factual inconsistencies within the post itself, maybe the commenter has said something different in the past. Click on their username and meticulously pore over their comment history for evidence of this. If you find nothing, maybe it's because the person is totally boring and has no original thoughts. Do you see? When you're being a total dick, the sky is the limit.

If you plan to start an argument about a player's performance, consider first bringing up that player's fangraphs or statcast page for a quick refresher on your opinions. Is the number in the Def column negative this year? That means the guy who just said he's a great defender could be wrong! But keep in mind that negative Def value is based on UZR, and DRS most likely says that same player is actually an elite defender, in which case you are just an ass for calling that guy an idiot. If the player's DRS is also bad, then he is likely to have an elite OAA in which case, unfortunately, you are still a complete ass. Maybe look at his sprint speed rank and if it's bad, you could use that to shore up your case for poor defense? If you find yourself hopelessly pigeonholed into a losing argument with people who seem to know more than you about baseball or defensive metrics, just mention the eye test and close the tab. Or just don't talk about defense. It's up to you.

If arguing about players isn't your thing, there's plenty of other ways to get your name out there. For example, you can look for comments about signing player X and reply pointing out that Liberty Media would never open their purse strings for that. Or if Fried just had a good start, consider making a comment about how the Braves rebuild has just worked out beautifully. That last one will pretty much guarantee a personal discussion with Ivan the Great and probably 2 or 3 of his top guys for as long as you can stomach keeping the thread alive. Understand that Ivan is one of the most highly paid executives at the Talking Chop, so if he's taking time out of his day to converse with you - then you must be pretty important as well.

Lastly, keep an eye out for hucksters trying to sell you a Talking Chop Premium membership. They never tell you this but the only way to become eligible for premium content is by providing a certain number of recs on comments by schlawg. I'm not sure of the baseline number but I do know it is not small. You'll know it when you get there.

Alright then, I hope this has been as helpful for you to read as it was strangely arousing and confusing for me to write. Have fun out there!




This FanPost does not express the views or opinions of Battery Power.