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A Defense of Long-Form Journalism at Bloody Elbow: An Analysis and Critique of Complaints about the Length of Thapa's Recent Opinion Piece

There have been a lot of comments about Thapa’s piece that he’s put out concerning the problems with the selling of narratives in MMA. Many of those comments aren’t about the actual content of the piece, but rather whether the piece is “too long.” I’d like to do my own analysis of these complaints, which I believe fall into three different categories and then give my opinion about the validity of each.

First off, I’ll note that I’m not hugging Thapa’s balls here. The stuff about The Reem was probably haphazardly thrown in (distracting from the main point but still interesting, even if I don’t agree with every word of that section), formatting could be better to break up sections, and maybe some points could be made more succinctly without losing any of the conveyed information. However, my critique of the criticism has a larger purpose and is meant to defend the general idea of complex long-form pieces as part of Bloody Elbow by discrediting the jab of “TL;DR.”

There are three types of complaints that I’m seeing.

(1) That the length is indicative of actual flaws in the attempt to communicate such as (a) confusion of issues/irrelevant discussions; (b) superfluous words/sections (so that a reduction in length could happen without actually losing any complexity/nuance/content); (c) too much background material which all of the audience already knows; or (d) given the length, some sort of sub-headings or other formatting in necessary in order to increase readability.

(2) The pragmatic criticism which admits that there are, in fact, people who read this site who are too busy/lazy/stupid/etc to read a longer piece and that it would have been better to reduce the length of the piece (even at the cost of reducing complexity/information/nuance/etc) so that more people would have absorbed a lesser amount of information rather than have fewer people absorb more information.

(3) The criticism that solely because the complainant personally is too busy/lazy/ADD/stupid/etc to read this longer piece the reader has the right to demand (and the on the flip side the author has a duty to make) the piece be shorter so that it will be intelligible to the complainant.

Type (1) criticisms seem to me to be completely reasonable. While there can be disagreement about whether a written piece contains type (1) errors, the fact that if such an error exists it should be criticized is undeniably reasonable.

Type (2) complaints boil down to having a different weighing of the cost-benefit analysis regarding the point of the written piece. A complaint on this level is implicitly arguing that it would be in the author’s best interest to spread less information more widely than more information to a curtailed audience. Such a complaint is relevant and helpful only insofar as the author has misjudged the actual outcome of his intended actions.

Type (3) complaints are the ones that I don’t understand at all. What is the unstated premise here? That your lack of time/attention/intelligence imposes an active duty upon another party not to write a longer piece? The only possible justification for this I can think of is the idea that it’s just “unfair” that there is in existence information that one is incapable of understanding and that to preserve the complainant’s feelings we should make sure to keep the discourse at a level that everyone is able to understand at the expense of actually communicating more complex information.

As an aside, if one says “well, what I’m really saying is that to keep the Bloody Elbow community cohesive and discourse lively it would be better to have pieces that everyone is able to understand.” That’s really a type 2 criticism. One would be saying that it is actually in the writer’s best interest to dumb down the piece. I’m not targeting those that are saying this.

Instead, I’m saying that type 3 complaints are the equivalent of yelling NERD! to make yourself feel better about your intellectual inferiority. Are you slaves that need to redefine characterizations of conduct and personality traits so that your own personal characteristics are considered good while those of the others are called evil? (Yes, I just made a Nietzsche reference). While such behavior might protect your feelings and produce trial solidarity, they end up reducing the actual amount of information available in the world.

Somewhere, someone must go through the hard process of thinking up and supporting complex thoughts with complex arguments in order for those ideas to eventually trickle down to those with less capacity to understand. To take an example, do you think the idea of “rights” just popped out of nowhere? Heck no. There has been an over 2000 year long tradition (which I’ll skim over briefly and lose some accuracy here in doing so) from the pre-socratics to Plato, to Aristotle, to Cicero, to Marcus Aurelius, to Aquinas, to Hobbs, to Hume, to Locke, to Kant, and so on and so on which was required to hammer out exactly what might be meant by this idea of “rights” that you go along so blissfully possessing that you think nothing of trying to shame someone into dumbing things down by throwing the internet equivalent of rotten fruit: TL;DR.

If the reason for your complaint about this piece is anything other than a Type 1 or 2 complaint just shut up. You don’t have a right to demand that information only be communicated in ways that you can understand. There’s no duty or prohibition on others to keep their level of discourse at low. Attempts to do so only contribute to the downfall of our once great civilization.

I am sure that I’ll get my own catcalls about TL;DR and ad hominem attacks that I’m an elitist or that this is just MMA why am I taking it so serious, etc. If that’s all you have to say just don’t bother. I love MMA, I love to talk about it, but a large part of why I love to talk about it and love to think about it is that visceral sports like MMA can teach us a lot about ourselves and our society outside of just turning off one’s brain and enjoying the pleasurable sensation of an adopted tribe member (our favorite fighters) acting as proxies for ourselves as they attempt to defeat adopted members of the opposite tribe (our hated fighters). A defense of attempts of long-form journalism about MMA is needed.

The FanPosts are solely the subjective opinions of Bloody Elbow readers and do not necessarily reflect the views of Bloody Elbow editors or staff.

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well...

I agree that long-form writing deserves to be defended, and that sports writing can aspire to much more than “lol that guy got pwned! here are some stats!”, but even the pro-long-form non-meta comments didn’t have much to say, which is really disappointing since it’s such an interesting topic.

A thousand years ago five minutes were
Equal to forty ounces of fine sand -- Nabokov

by mollcutpurse on Feb 1, 2012 6:01 PM EST reply actions  

Journalism?

What journalism? This is a blog and the writers here aren’t journalists, or at least they aren’t acting in the capacity of a journalist when posting here.

‎"Everyone has a plan until they’ve been hit."
~ Joe Lewis

http://worldisart365.blogspot.com/

by Worldisart on Feb 1, 2012 6:20 PM EST reply actions  

To lazily steal the opening line of a Wikipedia article

“Journalism is the practice of investigation and reporting of events, issues and trends to a broad audience in a timely fashion.” What part of that cannot apply to this blog in particular, & a large swathe of blogging in general, MMA & otherwise?

Define what makes journalism in such away that it cannot apply to Bloody Elbow, just for my own curiosity.

As an aside, jesus, the word appears in the article once, and in the headline. If its use offends you quite so much then pretend it just says “writing”.

by forkboy on Feb 1, 2012 7:37 PM EST up reply actions  

I've worked around journalists and wannabe journalists for the last decade

That’s why it bugs me. And to add to that, almost all of the writers here at one point or another have made a very deliberate point of making sure everyone knows that they are bloggers and not journalists.

‎"Everyone has a plan until they’ve been hit."
~ Joe Lewis

http://worldisart365.blogspot.com/

by Worldisart on Feb 1, 2012 8:12 PM EST up reply actions  

Usually it’s just Nate that says that, actually. But I get your point for sure. I ain’t no germalist!

"I don't know where this term "training camp" in MMA came from. There's no campground. There's no tents." - Nick Diaz

My twitter: @TB_Money

by Tim Burke on Feb 1, 2012 9:01 PM EST up reply actions  

What Roth is doing this weekend is definitely journalism

news blogging is probably best defined as a sub-set of journalism. I ride the “I’m not a journalist” thing because I believe blogging is a valid contribution in and of itself and that what’s popularly considered “journalism” doesn’t sit on some elevated plateau above blogging.

Follow me on Twitter @KidNate

by Nate Wilcox on Feb 2, 2012 9:53 AM EST up reply actions  

Agreed heartily!

Journalism is necessary for a community to function. But why do people assume that digging up new facts is more important that the analysis of those facts?

Most actual journalism (that isn’t merely disguised opinion commentary) is basically the necessary gruntwork before you get to the fun stuff—namely figuring out what it all means!

I smoke on the mic like Smokin' Joe Frazier

by jhf884 on Feb 2, 2012 10:49 AM EST up reply actions  

Generally, most people make

the distiction b/w “original reporting” and just cut and paste reposting.

BE has mostly opinion/analysis pieces—not journalism proper under your definition above—and reposting noteworthy reporting done elsewhere. BE does occasionally have an original “reporting” piece, but that’s more the exception than the rule. This is typically what folks think of when they think of a “blog”, that and the reverse chronological scrolldown format.

This isn’t to bash blogging by the way—journalism is necessary, but hardly some sacred unctouchable domain.

I smoke on the mic like Smokin' Joe Frazier

by jhf884 on Feb 2, 2012 10:46 AM EST up reply actions  

Thank you.

Proud member of The Voices in Paul Harris' Head, BECW Season 2.
"By doubting we come to inquiry and by inquiry we perceive the truth." -- Abelard

by Patrick Wyman on Feb 1, 2012 6:24 PM EST reply actions  

So this is too long and I didn’t read it (kidding).

But seriously, I wasn’t aware we had a community of people who couldn’t handle things over two paragraphs long. C’mon guys, seriously?

-AboveThisFire

The mat is my church, the ground is my heaven, Jiu-Jitsu is my religion. And once you hit the ground you're in my world. My world is like the ocean, I’m like a shark and most people don't even know how to swim - Draculino

If I live in a castle and you want to kill me, storming the gates is probably not the best idea. You'd do a lot better hitting me in the head with a brick when I come out for the mail. -Ryan Hall

I then rip off my shirt and do like a hulk scream and pose and then say to the kid " don’t you no I would fucking destroy you are you fucking retarded? -Areyouforreal

by Patrick Tenney on Feb 1, 2012 6:34 PM EST reply actions  

yeah I was drawn to this site for the real in depth articles

I was sick of the cotton candy writing and random lists of another website. Seriously people get over it, this is BE.

To have a Cannae you must have a Varo
-George Patton
"The complete man must work, study and wrestle."
-Aristotle

by T.P. Grant on Feb 1, 2012 8:05 PM EST up reply actions  

Exactly

In-depth analysis of both the fights themselves and fight culture are what BE offers, generally speaking, and it boggles my mind that there were people complaining about the length of that article.

Proud member of The Voices in Paul Harris' Head, BECW Season 2.
"By doubting we come to inquiry and by inquiry we perceive the truth." -- Abelard

by Patrick Wyman on Feb 1, 2012 8:56 PM EST up reply actions  

TL;DR

THEY SEE ME TROLLIN

THEY HATIN

Conductor of the Trainyard Sleepers! WHOO WHOOOOOO!

by Paulo Filho's Psychiatrist on Feb 1, 2012 6:41 PM EST reply actions  

Damnit, you got there before me.

I'd rather be trollin'.

by thirdparty on Feb 1, 2012 6:45 PM EST up reply actions  

A quality article is never too long.

The Machiavellian.
Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try Again. Fail again. Fail better. -Samuel Beckett

by Scott C. Broussard on Feb 1, 2012 6:48 PM EST reply actions   2 recs

Quality is the key part

I’m not going to read a huge article just because it’s there. If it’s lacking or just spinning its wheels, then I’m stopping. As long as you are a competent writer, know how to construct the piece and keep it moving, then I’ll read as long as I have to.

I Bleed Blue and Green

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by DSAhawker on Feb 1, 2012 6:58 PM EST up reply actions  

I don't mind either

Long-form or short-form whatever if I’m interested I’ll read it. I think it comes to the point where if its too long or you find it uninteresting dont read it and for the love of God don’t complain to us about it.

Good post by the way.

BECW S2: Last round pick
Team: Brock Lesnar's Cruelty-Free Pest Control

by NickaG on Feb 1, 2012 7:32 PM EST reply actions  

It depends

If it is well written and concise, that is acceptable. If it is constantly using fluff and other bullshit to make the writer appear smart, then it’s stupid. Pieces on this site tend to conform to the former, which is why I don’t see why there is a problem.

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by halitosis on Feb 1, 2012 7:54 PM EST reply actions  

It would not be a kellemonster post without a philosophy reference.

Well done – especially the breaking of the comments into three – and I accept your points about The Reem.

I wouldn’t consider myself a journalist in terms of these pure editorials, but I sure as hell do as much research and fact-finding through direct experience and talking to other people in Judo Chops and technique breakdowns as newspaper/magazine/TV writers/talkers do.

This was me having an opinion and taking a bit too long to say it. Perhaps letting it gestate a few days longer would have helped or breaking it into two posts. I’ll call that a lesson learned and my faith in the community here deepened due to the people who understood the piece and rightly took me to task for flaws, while brushing off the “Too looooong” comments.

Thank you all. I’ll do better next time.

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InStrength dot com.

by Ben Thapa on Feb 1, 2012 10:07 PM EST reply actions  

Concize writing is for science mags and the like. On a blog about sports, you can go long. On an opinion blog, it shouldn’t come as a surprise when you do.

It scares me when I see TL; DR overstepping the boundaries of common sense and covering shorter and shorter blocks of text. That shit is unreal.

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by Unabomberman on Feb 1, 2012 10:43 PM EST reply actions  

Oh shit son

this is awesome

No, you're not drunk. I am this good-looking.

by IKiIIed007 on Feb 2, 2012 8:24 AM EST up reply actions  

ahahaha

it pays to be the GIF king.

"Never say anything that doesn't improve on silence." -Richard Yates

Proud Member of "The Voices In Paul Harris' Head." The handsomest cyber-team on the inter webs.

by POW on Feb 2, 2012 8:31 AM EST up reply actions  

How the hell did you make that? That’s awesome

"I don't know where this term "training camp" in MMA came from. There's no campground. There's no tents." - Nick Diaz

My twitter: @TB_Money

by Tim Burke on Feb 2, 2012 11:36 AM EST up reply actions  

Capture your desktop as a vid, turn your vid into a gif or jpg, finalize with a gif maker, I assume.

"I don't want to sound cocky, but I do hold myself in high regard."

by spectaa on Feb 2, 2012 6:51 PM EST up reply actions  

You lost me at “capture”.

"I don't know where this term "training camp" in MMA came from. There's no campground. There's no tents." - Nick Diaz

My twitter: @TB_Money

by Tim Burke on Feb 2, 2012 7:04 PM EST up reply actions  

#sixseasonsandamovie!!!!!

"They can grow beards all they want. Won’t rival mine no matter what they do." - Luke Thomas 2/1/2012

by darkotto23 on Feb 3, 2012 7:02 PM EST up reply actions  

I agree with this. It wasn’t too long as much as it could have been 1/3 the length without learning a thing. People do not want to read a bunch of stuff that is going nowhere just to get to the few parts that are relevant.

My favorite part of articles like that is the people that blindly say it was awesome, so it seems like only they were smart enough to be able to read the whole thing and understand it.

by schm1583 on Feb 2, 2012 9:03 AM EST up reply actions  

This was my view,

I posted “tl;dr” on Ben’s original article, mostly as a joke, but also b/c I found the article to be a real slog to get through, when he could have made the same point much more simply w/o losing any of the substance.

I smoke on the mic like Smokin' Joe Frazier

by jhf884 on Feb 2, 2012 10:52 AM EST up reply actions  

I’d have to agree, the problem wasn’t the length of the article, it was more the format of it and the lack of a clear narrative. It was a bit hard to follow and didn’t seem to reach any real conclusions or overall points. I didn’t complain about it then but if you really want to know that’s how I felt about it. Have no problem reading longer articles if they’re well written.

And this “defense” post simply seems like a cheap way to make yourself seem more intelligent and better than anyone who may have complained about it. Putting in that completely unnecessary part about “rights” didn’t exactly help either, overall I find this post an unfortunate mix of pretentious and confrontational.

"I want to tell me what you see, let's go ahead and see by the fight, what you saw, in the ring."

by Horselover Fat on Feb 2, 2012 2:13 PM EST up reply actions  

The part about rights (which was what, at most 5% of the piece) is directly related to my criticism of Type 3 complaints about long pieces.

I define such complaints as assertions that the author has a duty, and the reader has the corresponding positive right, to have information only conveyed in short easily digestible form.

Such a complaint is only even possible because the complainant has in their head the idea that they have something called “rights” which are enforcible as duties upon others.

My point is that it is hypocritical to use the idea of rights with the specific intent to shame others from attempting to convey complex ideas when the idea of rights itself required a complex discussion in order to establish their existence.

While you might disagree with whether any of the complaints even fell into this third category, I don’t see any internal inconsistencies in my argument that would make the section on rights unnecessary.

Second, I have no need to be seen as better and more intelligent by people I don’t know on the internet. Obviously you’ve got a different opinion of me on that point and beyond making this assertion, it isn’t worth fighting over.

by kellemonster on Feb 2, 2012 5:19 PM EST up reply actions  

You know what I do when I'm reading an article I don't like or I lose interest in.

I stop reading it and start reading another. I know this sounds extremely hard to do because I have invested the whole 2 minutes of reading into said article, but I find it better then reading through the rest of the article and leaving an angry comment.

by OptimusPiss on Feb 2, 2012 3:32 PM EST up reply actions   1 recs

If you paid attention to what I said in this piece, your version of “tl;dr” falls directly under type 1 criticisms which I explicitly mentioned I was not attacking.

Telling the reader that I’m not going to be detailed or entirely accurate for one little example isn’t the same thing as saying “half-assed bullshit”. It’s a way to use what I think is a useful example without getting bogged down into criticisms of “your example isn’t a good one because it’s not entirely accurate.”

by kellemonster on Feb 2, 2012 5:28 PM EST up reply actions  

Writing, like a lot of things, is an ongoing course of trial and improvement

Me personally? I prefer a happy medium between detailed and easily digested. Concise but complete. Being able to write a certain way for a certain audience comes with time and practice.

Bloody Elbow Grappling Editor.
Follow me on Twitter @KJGould
Like me on Facebook

by KJ Gould on Feb 2, 2012 6:52 AM EST reply actions  

“Being able to write a certain way for a certain audience”

But that’s the crux of it, isn’t it? What is the telos of the communication? To maximize the level of information conveyed to the most people, or is it okay to do a more complex piece that not everyone in the community will have the time, stamina, or ability to get through? This isn’t a magazine where there is only a limited amount of space.

And again, this is separate from whether Thapa did a good job in this particular case with going for complexity. It’s about the nature of some of the criticisms which stand on shaky foundations.

by kellemonster on Feb 2, 2012 5:23 PM EST up reply actions  

Ahh, kellemonster. Good to have you back.

"I don't know where this term "training camp" in MMA came from. There's no campground. There's no tents." - Nick Diaz

My twitter: @TB_Money

by Tim Burke on Feb 2, 2012 11:35 AM EST reply actions  

So many lazy asses.

If it took you reading the whole article to figure out that you didn’t like the writing style or the content you have no one to blame but your own stupidity.

That being said I see no problem with lengthy pieces being posted on BE, if you think a piece is too long or that you don’t want to spend the time to read an article you need to realize that no one is forcing you to read. I understand that a lot of the complaints are aimed to help the writer develop and are suggestions, but a lot are also just down right disrespectful.

Posting tl dr on an article should be a bannable offense IMO, your comment isn’t offering any useful insight other then that you are a lazy asshole.

by OptimusPiss on Feb 2, 2012 3:26 PM EST reply actions  

If I knew what it meant I might consider banning for it.

"I don't know where this term "training camp" in MMA came from. There's no campground. There's no tents." - Nick Diaz

My twitter: @TB_Money

by Tim Burke on Feb 2, 2012 3:35 PM EST up reply actions  

Ahh.

"I don't know where this term "training camp" in MMA came from. There's no campground. There's no tents." - Nick Diaz

My twitter: @TB_Money

by Tim Burke on Feb 2, 2012 4:14 PM EST up reply actions  

Haaaa!

I have been reading all these comments and I figured out that TL probably meant to long but I could only think of “don’t ramble” for DR.

Minowa is a little guy but he's very good to break a fighters foot and my foot is very special to me.

by dedstrk316 on Feb 2, 2012 6:37 PM EST up reply actions  

Too long!?

Seriously shit bags, can you find anything else to bitch about?

I recently quit drinking carbonated beverages.

by mannfretti on Feb 2, 2012 5:10 PM EST reply actions  

Apparently one person has figured he can complain about free UFC on FOX.

Minowa is a little guy but he's very good to break a fighters foot and my foot is very special to me.

by dedstrk316 on Feb 2, 2012 6:37 PM EST up reply actions   1 recs

Plenty but this will do for now.

I am free because I choose to be so-Me

by Kefka on Feb 4, 2012 7:28 PM EST up reply actions  

I believe this long article is aimed at people who don’t read long articles.

"I don't want to sound cocky, but I do hold myself in high regard."

by spectaa on Feb 2, 2012 7:06 PM EST reply actions  

I wouldn’t know, I didn’t read it. Did you see how long that shit was?!

I recently quit drinking carbonated beverages.

by mannfretti on Feb 3, 2012 9:28 AM EST up reply actions   1 recs

I wanted to see how long it was, but my scrolling finger is cramping and I just can’t look through all these posts and comments for the cool gifs anymore

by RobtWeaver on Feb 3, 2012 10:04 AM EST up reply actions  

there is nothing wrong with long form journalism. New Yorker magazine is one of the best sources for it….if it is well researched and well written, it can be one of my favorite things to spend my reading time on. When i saw this title, it did not pique my interest so i didn’t even bother reading the article in question, but if it fit the above criteria, i don’t see why people are complaining about it.

if it looks too long or just doesn’t interest you, just don’t read the damn thing!!

by phantom5691 on Feb 3, 2012 8:06 AM EST reply actions  

The worst part about this is

Idiots will complain about 1,900 word articles but will gladly pour through 25,420 words worth of comments to find one point to mock and criticize.

I recently quit drinking carbonated beverages.

by mannfretti on Feb 3, 2012 3:07 PM EST reply actions   1 recs

the difference?

pictures and gif’s

I JUST WANT MY BASKETBALL BACK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

by Sean in Vancouver on Feb 5, 2012 2:22 AM EST up reply actions  

If something is too long for me to read for whatever reason, I don’t take extra time to scroll down to the comment section to complain about it. That seems counter-productive.

I’d suggest pointing those people in the direction of Bleacher Report. I mean they have slide-shows and everything!

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by Zachary Kater on Feb 3, 2012 3:32 PM EST reply actions  

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