Criticism of Runners vs. Criticism of Musicians, Actors, Politicians, etc.

Thank!You! wrote:

Thank you runner girl for this post.

Unfortunately, due to the anonymity this board allows - the ultimate result is THERE IS NO GOOD PLACE FOR RUNNING AND TRACK AND FIELD CHAT ON THE WEB.....

Dude you should never write that long of a response on a message board..nobody will read it.

honeydipper wrote:

Thanks for asking, well...I polled 100,000 random people on who Anna Willard is. Only one individual knew the correct answer.

I would venture to guess if I polled 100,000 random people on the street as to who Leif Ove Andsnes is, or Hilary Hahn or the great Gerald Moore, they wouldn't have a clue either. That doesn't mean they aren't top of the line classical musicians. Also doesn't mean that they haven't been subjected to the critic's pen.

txRg raises an interesting question. Are runner's egos so fragile that they can't sort through criticism that is a)thinly veiled hatred versus b)legitimate criticism, that if given healthful consideration, might help the athlete grow? There are certainly those in the arts whose egos can't handle it and therefore must steer clear of reading ANY reviews; others will be able to read good and bad and take away what might be a legit complaint. Then it's up to the artist to decide if they can grow by assessing the criticism and incorporating change into their routine, or if they feel the criticism was just that reviewer's opinion and therefore inconsequential.

Perhaps with young (and old, for that matter) artists just starting out, their teacher or manager provides the judgment of whether reviews are helpful or hurtful; I'm assuming coaches have a similar role with their athletes' careers.

"It takes one bad apple to spoil the bunch." That's a cliche, but it's true. Since there is a lot of crap on the message board, I think the website often gets a bad reputation.

Malmo, I agree, but just out of curiosity, if Letsrun is such a sewer, why have you been living here for so long?

Wejo and rojo have no need or desire to begin registration. They need high flow of readers, in order to justify ad charges and revenues. All this trolling does just that, or so I think. But it hurts the sport, that is for sure, since a lot of what gets posted here is a true embarassment.

I quit doing triathlons and now only run.

Why?

Because I found letsrun and this meesage board kicks A$$ over that pretentious slowtwitch one.

You people are my people.

So you can claim at least one fan to T&F that knows sooooo much more then I ever knew about HS, College, Elite running then I did 2 years ago. Add to that more running clothes, shoes and running races I pay to own and do now!

All because of this message board. Long live the TROLL!

dddf wrote:

But it hurts the sport, that is for sure, since a lot of what gets posted here is a true embarassment.

Since letsrun and other running websites have become available, the sport is doing better. No, it's not as popular as we want it to be, but times are getting faster and medals are being won. Still a way to go, but better than the 90's. If anything letsrun has helped the sport with its coverage and sharing of training info. The negative trolling that goes on isn't unique to this site and isn't wejo or rojo's fault. It looks bad to us, track athletes/fans, because we read the message board. The average person doesn't know what letsrun is. The average person reads mainstream newspapers. The only time they hear about track is when someone gets busted for doping. One day I asked my cousin who doesn't run what he thought of when he thinks of pro running. He said "drugs." Who is hurting the sport here?

Thank!You!,

Let's go back to the 1980's. There was nowhere to talk about running on the web. Unless you were a blossoming computer science student, there wasn't even a web.

Now we have a web. We have all sorts of options. There are tons of places you can go, register, and talk in a censored environment about whatever you want to talk about, as long as it smells like roses, doesn't piss anyone off, and would make 9 out of 10 Catholic Nuns happy.

I will warn you, at those places where you have to register, nobody is talking about track and field or running in any kind of interesting way.

But here, it's relatively uncensored. And there are lots of people to carry on a discussion with. Sorry you don't like it. I don't like that I have to go to work every day. But I'd rather live on my salary and hard work than on Welfare. So I work. Boo hoo.

You are probably one of the people who goes berzerk about what people say about Galen Rupp.

Take a step back. Zoom out from the earth until you're in outer space and the earth is just a dot.

From this new perspective: DOES IT REALLY MATTER?

People make decisions about their business. LetsRun doesn't screw over the little guy. They let everyone talk. Maybe, if you're so angry at the posts, you should just hate humanity, not LetsRun.com and txRUNNERgrl.

Be positive. Add to the positivity. You CANNOT control others, only influence them with your attitude. Stop with your moral righteousness. It's disgusting and depressing.

Running websites like LetsRun, Dyestat and others made a difference in the awareness of competition among runners in their field. They provided an outlet for peer group recognition within a small community, particularly at the high school and college level. This peer group recognition contributed in a positive way to the development and emergence of new talent in recent years and they should be applauded for that.

Unfortunately, these websites did not accomplish the task of expanding the interest of the sport to the general public. Runners today are better than they were 30 years ago and they have more character and personality than let' say a golfer or nascar driver. I think the personalities will drive the solution in the next four years.

QFE, POD