Article:Friday Fryer (July 24th, 2009)



 A look at the sports week's biggest losers… A public service by guest host SSreporters on behalf of the creator himself, Christof. 

The Friday Fryer is making a special appearance but the loser carries a serious tone.

THE FINALISTS

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'''AND THE LOSER IS. . .'''

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 * bgcolor="#C21A00" align="center" | ArmchairGM




 * bgcolor="#FFFFFF" | This is not just for the last week but probably the past 4-5 months. I can't pretend much longer that I am even the slightest bit happy about what a once great website has now become.

What I witnessed yesterday in this article just about epitomizes what AGM is today. A place where trolling reigns supreme and personal attacks are aplenty. I was disgusted with almost that entire thread. Sure I said it was comical publicly but I was just fooling myself.

We have a Code of Conduct that nobody (including the admins) follows. We have trolls and personal attacks that once would previously come with some form of punishment or at a minimum a warning, is now met with "just ignore him" or "he's being himself" as justification for absolutely pathetic actions.

We have substandard articles that are poorly researched are somehow getting promoted.

Over half of the 211 comments yesterday were either illegible, nonsensical, profanity-laden, sometimes a combination of the three and completely irrelevant to sports.

I understand people are making efforts to help rebuild this site, but ArmchairGM, for lack of a better word, sucks. No sugarcoating. It sucks.

What more can we do? Yes in a way it is a bunch of bitching. But is it not true? I dare you all to go look back in the archives (say March 2008) and realize how much meaningful production there was even when there were clear signs that many of the old users were moving on. Compare it to as late as yesterday and you tell me that the quality of the writing, discussion, and the community's togetherness hasn't gone down the toilet.

The founders may not be with us to help make this site better, but I had to put this up and say what I think about this site publicly. I love ArmchairGM. All I want, and hopefully everyone else, is a website with lively SPORTS discussion, a place where differing opinions (yes, DIFFERING OPINIONS) are allowed without some form of hissy fit and a gigantic locker room post stating why they're leaving.

All I've heard during this is the generic "we need to comment more" for discussion, "he's just being himself" and "use the ignore button" for trolling, and "write more articles" and "AGM will rise again". It's not working. The Water Cooler, the articles, the discussion, the recruiting drives, they've all failed.

Not one of us is really above or below responsibility for dragging AGM down. We've all contributed to the mess in some way and it may be too big for this decreasing community to handle.

''I want your HONEST opinion of AGM today. I don't want any rhetoric or generic responses. It can be criticism or praise or both but I just want people to speak up. I've voiced my opinion. Voice yours.''

And maybe you can talk about the finalists too....