A Modest Trade Proposal

It is a melancholy object to those who browse through this great web-log, when they see the Fan Posts, the Fan Shots, even the front page, crowded with posters of a recent join date, authoring three, four, or six 'Let's make a trade' articles, all poorly written and importuning every general manager for an A+ prospect.  These posters, instead of being able to reason that we have pieces to give in good standing, are forced to make up offers of such filler as Paul Maholm and Lyle Overbay, who when they get traded will regress back to their old ways, or just retire from the game of baseball altogether.

I think it is agreed by all parties that this prodigious number of trade topics made at the whim of these posters is in the present deplorable state of the web-log a very great additional grievance; and, therefore, whoever could find out a quick, bandwidth-saving, simple method of making these posters and their offending posts sound, useful members of the commonwealth, would deserve so well of the userbase as to have his thumbnail replace the little red skull and crossbones flag decorating the upper left hand corner of this site

But my intention is very far from being confined to provide only for the trade-posts of professed users; it is of a much greater extent, and shall take in the whole number of posts which are created of users in effect as little able to back them up with facts as I am able to fit into a pair of ladies undergarments after Pizza Tuesday.

As to my own part, having turned my thoughts for the past couple of weeks upon this important subject, and maturely weighted the several ideas for a counter-post, I have always found them grossly mistaken in the computation.  It is true, a trade-post proposed my be supported by other users of similar ilk with little more than a few recommendations, at most not above the value of 2s...which the creator may certainly beg for, and it is at this point in time that I propose to proved for them in such a manner as instead of clogging our Fan Posts section from other useful posts involving the true goings-on of the team at this moment, they shall on the contrary contribute to the overall quality of these boards visited by many thousands.

There is likewise another great advantage in my scheme, that it will prevent Charlie from having to delete these offending trade posts voluntarily, and that horrid practice of Charlie wasting said poster's five minutes it took to create said post, alas! too frequent over the last couple of weeks!

the number of posters in the blog being usually reckoned, I dunno, a couple dozen, of these I calculate there may be about three or four whose posts involve making deals with other teams; from which number I subtract about two who is able to maintain logic and reason within a trade post, although I apprehend that two is a lofty estimation given the landfill-esque stench emanating from my monitor -- a singular object not even made for the spreading of scent, mind you -- and there remains about three offending posters.  I again subtract another one for those posters who immediately delete their post after a thorough tongue-lashing by the regular posters here.  There remains about two posters who write these offending posts and leave them up here to pollute the harddrive.  The question is, how this number shall be dealt with, which seems quite impossible given the public nature of this message board -- we can neither ban them due to lack of an obvious breaking of the rules, and even if they do, at around an account age of six months old, they have learned the subtle ways to break the law of the board and will still exist to post more trade topics.

I am assured by our veteran posters, that a boy or girl with less than 100 posts to his credit is no salable commodity himself, Lyle Overbay-ean, if you will; and even when they reach this post count they will have not yet yielded a useful trade proposal.

I shall now therefore humbly propose my own trade idea, which I hope will not be liable to the least objection.

I have been assured by a very knowing blogger in the Pittsburgh area, that a young healthy poster, recently unbanned by the Pittsburgh native's own blog, a most thought-provoking, content-ridden, and intelligent commenter, whether discussing the front office, trades, current baseball projection or his ideas on the economy of baseball; and I make no doubt that he will equally fit in at the next Bucs Dugout gatherring.

I do therefore humble offer it to public consideration that of the two or three posters already computed, we trade all of these offenders themselves to the aforementioned Pittsburgh blogger for his prized poster himself, named NuttingHostage.

I grant this poster will be somewhat familiar due to him leaving us but not over a year ago, but as most trades will happen, one can return to an organization of which he has left.

I have already computed the charge of having NuttingHostage around to be about ten dollars a month (I propose we also upgrade to pay-site only, but that is another topic entirely).  Those who are more thrifty may take it upon themselves to learn the art of computer hacking to bypass the pay-wall if they so wish.

A very worthy poster, a true lover of the Pirates and whose virtues I highly esteem, was lately pleased in discoursing on this matter to offer a refinement upon my scheme.  Ron Cook (through the scape of a dream) suggested that he be promoted to the role of Editor, joining Vlad as one who can promote topics of his pleasing to the front page as well as write to it on his own whim.  All of this for two or three young posters who contribute only bottom-feeding trade conversation and ideas.

I think the advantages by the proposal which I have made are obvious and many, as well as of the highest importance.

For first, as I have already observed, it would greatly lessen the number of trade topics (the whole point of this trade topic, I must add), which which we are weekly overrun, being the principal traders of the baseball world over the past three years.

Secondly, the posters whom were the focus of the trade will value their new blog, as the subject matter over there most likely suites their style

Thirdly, Whereas having to read trade ideas from these young posters can indeed be a waste of blog-browsing time, the boards useful-content-per-second-spent-reading will be thereby increased fifty thousand units per annum -- the knowledge will circulate among ourselves, the goods being entirely of our own growth and manufacture (which is what we'll tell others when they ask how we obtained such a great poster).

Many other advantages might be enumerated.  For instance, a larger rate of more knowledgeable new posters will join our fine community.  I won't dive into any of the other advantages (believe me, thought, there are many).

I can think of no one objection that will possibly be raised against this proposal, unless it should be urged, that the number of trade-topic posters will be thereby much lessened on the weblog.  This I freely own, and 'twas indeed one principal design in offering it to the world.

I profess, in the sincerity of my heart, that I have not the least personal interest in endeavoring to promote the necessary work (as I hate trade topics and everything involved with them), having no other motive than getting rid of bad filler content on those fan posts over there.  I have no trade topics of my own excepting this one, and cannot bring up offers of my own head for such a fine poster of Pirates yore, which I do regret painfully.