I hate “Comments” on web stories and blogs.  I say that as somebody who enjoys commenting on web stories and blogs.  Comments are a way for the little guy (often literally a 12-year-old with too much free time) to see his own words in permanent ‘ink’ on a legitimate multi-national web site.

You have several different types of posters.  Below are actual posts taken from MLB.com, faithfully copied-and-pasted in unaltered Arial font.

Grammasites are parasites that suck the punctuation, capitalization, and tenses out of a sentence to render it completely devoid of meaning.  

Grammasite commentors possibly provide the least value to a Comment Board.  They are hard to understand, there is no statistical argument, they are not even entertaining in a vaguely crude way.

Ramblers begin their comment on topic and rapidly diverge off on a wild tangent that has nothing to do with anything in the article, or anything that anybody else has previously posted about.

Somehow in this example, the Rambler has turned Volquez’ 50-game PED suspension into what he/she believes is a valid argument for Giambi to give back his MVP trophy.  Somewhere, sadly, this makes sense to somebody.

The Flamer lives for taking people down a few pegs, deserved or not.  His mission in life is to make up for his own dorkitude by showing everybody how cool he is in the classic schoolyard playground method:  slinging mud.

This commenter may be entirely correct.  That doesn’t make him any less stupid for wasting time out of his day to make this post.  Would it have killed him to ignore?  If you are a Flamer, then yes, it likely would.

The Repeater thinks that what he has to say is so stinking funny/insightful that he has to post it multiple times.  Sometimes the Repeater submits twice because he just plain fails at the internet, but oftentimes this is the obnoxious kid that says things over and over until somebody acknowledges his existence with either a half-hearted chuckle or a punch in the face.

There is no cure for being a Repeater, other than to be repeatedly punched in the face.

The know it all uses what he perceives to be his superior grasp of strategy, knowledge, linguistic skills, and relativistic quantum theory to enlighten the masses of people who are craving for him to explain Life, the Universe, and Everything, so that it all becomes clear in one blinding flash of insight encapsulated in a lengthy message board comment on a public web site.

About two sentences in, most readers have already moved on.  The Know-It-All is sadly unaware that nobody reads his crap, and those who do are Flamers looking for an easy target, or quadriplegics with their eyeballs taped open in front of their screen in some cruel psychology experiment measuring the effect of obnoxious people on captive audiences.

The Harbinger (of Doom) is the commentor who wants everybody to know exactly how bleak the situation is for their own team.  There is no hope in this person’s life, everything is a dull, dark, throbbing ache of despair.  They relieve pressure on this well of glumness like a fart in a crowded elevator.

The Harbinger usually forgets his own predictions when things do not turn out quite as dismally as feared.

The comedian really isn’t funny.  Who ever really i
s, when the end-all-be-all of their existence is to comment on a story by the associated press and think anybody cares?  They do try their hardest though.

Example:  “I would trade [Dave Trembley] for vagisil, toothpicks, a rib eye steak, and a pair od BG’s moms fat pants.“

For the record, nobody responded to this particular example, nor should they.  Besides, if you got a Rib Eye for Trembley, you’re getting a bargain.  Can’t beat a good steak.  And BG’s mom isn’t that fat.

The Statwhore is a god of baseball.  A titan among lesser men.  He will blind (or confuse) you with stats the HE AND NOBODY ELSE knows (except for Baseball Reference, MLB.com, Baseball Prospectus, Wikipedia, etc.). 

What, oh what, I cry to the heavens, will I have done had I lived my life without knowledge of Andino’s career fielding percentage?  Thankfully, Statwhores sometimes spontaneously combust from their own perceived awesomeness.  Statwhores are usually also Know-It-Alls, but the reverse is not always true.

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Indignant commentors may ask me (or comment) what right a blogger (using the term very loosely in my case as I suck at it and rarely post) has to criticize them.  The answer is, “Absolutely none!” but luckily, I don’t care what you think, because now my blog has given you something new to comment on and thus fulfill your useless life with an outlet for what you crave:  attention.