Thanks to your Patreon support, I don't have to think too much about page views. Sox Machine generates a portion of its revenue from clicks, but I pay closer attention to visitor trends, because that'll reflect if what we're doing is holding an audience.
I really only check page views during the last week of December, just to indulge general curiosity about which story got the most traction.
The top post can oftentimes be one that doesn't seem all that significant at the end of a year, like a mock draft, modest roster move or some quick-hit aggregation that catches Google News and/or Reddit at the perfect time. I welcome any and all traffic, because such stories are how Sox Machine adds readers, but it's always slightly disheartening when posts that took real time and energy are trumped by ones that took 30 minutes. Spend too much time thinking about it, and you end up in aggregation-land.
Fortunately, this year's page-view champion is uplifting ... at least for me.
Sox Machine's most-read story was the day-after breakdown of the White Sox's breakdown on the basepaths, resulting in an 8-5 triple play on July 4 against the Twins. Thanks for validating my decision to watch that play 20something times, even if this image is scorched into my occipital lobes.
Among the White Sox personnel referenced in that post, Adam Engel is no longer on the White Sox, and neither is AJ Pollock, Joe McEwing nor Tony La Russa. I suppose that counts as progress.
Over at The Verge, Monique Judge advocated for the return of the personal blog. I'm pretty much a sucker for any post like this for obvious reasons, but one part jumped out to me:
People built entire communities around their favorite blogs, and it was a good thing. You could find your people, build your tribe, and discuss the things your collective found important.
We are now in an age where people come on the internet to be the worst possible versions of themselves, and it’s an ugly sight to behold. Take the power back by building blogs and putting comment moderation in place (it’s relatively easy on both WordPress and Blogger).
Trolls only thrive in an environment where they are allowed to run around unchecked, and that is what most of social media is. There are plenty of tools that allow you to keep those people out of your comments while still allowing those who appreciate your words, thoughts, and content to fellowship with each other in a community of your own design.
(Note: The Verge is a property of Vox, which is the parent company of SB Nation, which changed its commenting platform a couple years ago and wiped out every discussion from its blogs during my time there, which always breaks my heart a little whenever revisiting old SSS posts.)
The community is the vital part of doing this, because the hardest part of blogging and podcasting is sustaining energy without one, and that's doubly so when the subject itself becomes a chore. Prior to the launch of Sox Machine in February 2006, I blogged every day for two solid months in private, just to make sure I'd enjoy the practice even if I didn't get the attention.
Entering my 18th year of doing this, I've evolved into a a position where I'm more invested in White Sox fans than I am in the White Sox themselves, and I highly recommend it. You get all the benefits of fandom when the Sox win, but when they're lost and rudderless, there's still edification in presaging the issues, comparing notes and informing and amusing each other.
I think most everybody here has the same idea. I don't really have to use a heavy hand with moderation because true trolls tend to get bored pretty quickly. Other members have entered with a troll-like heat, but they make the adjustment after some taking with their giving. Such situations tend to resolve themselves in one direction or the other within a couple of days, and I'd rather let the lifecycle play itself out than actively condition the discussion. Most people who spend time on Sox Machine want to get something out of the conversation, and I'm grateful for that.
Keep this in mind as we enter what feels like Late Stage White Sox. There's reason to believe the Sox could win the AL Central in a surprisingly comfortable fashion because the division is inherently self-limiting. There's also reason to believe it could all come crashing down because the team's infrastructure looks downright rickety. Patrick wrote his post about the White Sox's isolationism at the same time I was reading a whole lot about Southwest Airlines' catastrophic disruption, and the problems spring from a similar source.
So why didn’t Southwest simply update its software and systems?
Well, if you are a corporate executive whose compensation is tied to stock prices and earnings statements released every three months, there are strong incentives to address any immediate problem by essentially adding a bit of duct tape and wire to what you already have, rather than spending a large amount of money — updating software is costly and difficult — to address the root problem. Then you can cross your fingers and hope that whatever catastrophe may be in the making, it erupts under someone else’s future tenure. Such bets often pay off since, increasingly, the plight of a company’s customers and employees is divorced from the immediate fortunes of its current top executives.
The White Sox are not publicly traded and they're not subject to federal regulation, so there's even less reason for Jerry Reinsdorf to make himself uncomfortable by demanding better from his front office. As much as anybody would like to peddle optimism, we have to brace for ordinary hardships causing extraordinary ruin.
Why keep following them, then? Probably for the same reason gearheads gravitate toward certain makes regardless of their track records. There's emotional attachment over years and decades, sure, but there's also gratification in intimately understanding why they fail. The satisfaction of a successful "Well THERE'S your problem" isn't commensurate with the time and money spent on a product you know is substandard, but when you're rational about your own irrationality, you can find your own fun. Happy New Year.
