A few weeks ago, the annual meeting of the Western Economic Association was held in Portland, Oregon. From what I understand, this is second largest meeting of economists (the meetings of the American Economic Association are the largest). To put the size of the meeting in perspective – the NAASE (North American Association of Sports Economists) — along with the International Association of Sports Economists — sponsored sixteen sessions where 62 papers on sports and economics were presented (and critically discussed). All these papers, though, only represented about 7% of all the papers presented at the WEA.
These other papers aren’t really the focus of this current post. In fact, the sports papers aren’t what I want to talk about either. In addition to all the NAASE sessions, we also had a panel discussion on the subject of blogging about sports and economics.
The panel discussion was at 8:15am on July 1st. It was my intention to post a comment on this discussion soon after the panel was over (at 10am). But after the panel I had to chair a session (from 1o:15am to 12pm), attend two meetings of the NAASE (from 12:15pm to 2:30pm), meet with Rob Simmons (we are working on a number of projects), meet with a potential publisher of my next book, and then go to dinner with about 20 sports economists (followed by another meeting with a different co-author). So posting on July 1st didn’t happen. It also didn’t happen on July 2nd (very busy that day), July 3rd (yep, more stuff to do at the meetings), or July 4th (traveling all day and I was tired). And then after I got back from the meetings it turned out I had other stuff to do that I had been neglecting (due to all the stuff I had to do for the meetings).
So here it is, 19 days later and I still haven’t written anything about this discussion. And that’s too bad, since it was a great discussion. At least, I think it was great. After 19 days, I am not sure I remember all that we said.
Let me see if I can jog my memory by first noting the participants in the panel. We begin with our moderator.
Dennis Coates – Professor of Economics at University of Maryland-Baltimore County and contributor to the The Sports Economist blog (named one of the Top 30 economics blogs by the Wall Street Journal in 2009). Dennis was also the first President of the NAASE.
And here are the panelists:
- Kevin Arnovitz – journalist and frequent NPR contributor, who currently writes for ClipperBlog and TrueHoop.
- Brad Humphreys – Professor and Chair in the Economics of Gaming at the University of Alberta and contributor to The Sports Economist blog. Brad also served as President of the NAASE in 2009-10 and is a co-editor of Contemporary Economic Policy.
- Justin Wolfers – Associate Professor of Business and Public Policy at The Wharton School (University of Pennsylvania), frequent NPR commentator and contributor to the Freakonomics blog. Justin has also written for the New York Times, Washington Post, and Chicago Tribune. In addition, he has appeared on the Today show and numerous other television and radio programs. In sum, Justin is really famous (for an economist).
- David Berri – Yes, that’s me. Just to be official…. Associate Professor of Economics at Southern Utah University and co-author of Stumbling on Wins and The Wages of Wins. Plus I write for The Wages of Wins Journal (obviously) and the Huffington Post. I am also the current president of the NAASE.
Okay, those were the people on the panel. Now, what did we talk about?
During our discussion I was actually taking notes (again, with the plan to post something that day). Unfortunately, my note taking skills have diminished over time (and I am not sure they were that great to begin with). So again, what I have to say about this discussion may not entirely capture all that was said.
With that caveat in mind, here is my recollection of what we had to say about the various questions and topics raised by our moderator (and members of the panel as well as the people in our audience).
- What is the purpose of blogging? This is the big issue facing academics who blog. We are not paid to blog. So it is not entirely clear why we bother. Justin, though, offered a couple of explanations for why academics engage in this activity. First, blogging allows one to communicate academic research to a non-academic audience. It also helps one learn how to write (something academics are not generally taught in graduate school). None of us noted an inner need to seek attention (because that is not why anyone blogs and no one should suggest otherwise!!). Kevin had a different take on this question (and I will get to that in a moment).
- What is the appropriate length of a blog post? Related to the previous discussion was Justin’s observation that a 400-word limit (which apparently Freakonomics imposes) really forces one to learn how to be concise. Brad also confirmed the notion that blog posts should be about 400 words. Readers of this forum, though, know that I have trouble restricting my posts to less than 1,000 words. In fact, this post might pass the 1,500 word mark.
- How long does it take you to write a blog post? Brad argued that his blog posts at the Sports Economist only take 20 minutes to write. Justin found that assertion hard to believe. In fact, Justin said if Brad started writing a blog post right now, 20 minutes later he would definitely still be writing. I also don’t think Justin bought my argument that my blog posts don’t require much time at all, since I tend to write these as I watch television at night (not sure I buy that argument, either… but it’s what I said).
- What is the role of blogging and the sports media? Kevin not only came to the panel, but he hoped to come to a number of sessions. Unfortunately – unlike the rest of us – his job kept him away from much of the meeting (apparently stuff was happening in the NBA around the beginning of July). Still, he did have much to say about the role of blogging for the sports media. Two issues he raised: First, Kevin emphasized that he saw part of his work – and the work of Henry Abbott at TrueHoop – was to bring statistical analysis to basketball fans. In fact, one was left with the impression that this was a significant part of the TrueHoop mission. Kevin also noted the role blogging plays in the media. In the past, journalist wrote a story and that was it. Now the people employing journalists expect reporters to blog, tweet, etc… Kevin didn’t think many members of the media liked this trend (although one definitely got the impression that Kevin liked all of this stuff).
- Statistical Analysis and Sports: Kevin came back on more than one occasion to the topic of how blogs are bringing statistical analysis to a larger audience. Kevin covers the Clippers, and he noted how statistical analysis was specifically mentioned by the Clippers in justifying their choices on draft night. Kevin also recounted the story of Kevin Durant being toldhow his performance was viewed by adjusted plus-minus. Kevin told this story to emphasize the point that historically, statistical analysis typically didn’t find its way to the players. I should add that Kevin and I did make some effort to discuss how stats can be used to evaluate players in the NBA, but Brad wisely told us to bring the discussion back to the topic at hand (which was not stats and the NBA).
- On the subject of comments: We had quite a discussion on the topic of the value of comments from the readers. In general, comments were seen as having benefits and costs. Here are some of the issues raised:
- Justin offered three rules for reading comments: 1) Make sure you have a thick skin, 2) comments will let you know if you failed in your effort to communicate, and 3) comments can also further the conversation. The issue of having a thick skin was raised more than once. We all seemed to agree that you cannot present work to the general public without a thick skin.
- Justin also mentioned briefly the idea of having readers vote on the quality of comments. This would draw attention to the “best” comments and cause the less useful comments to fade to the bottom of the queue. Not sure how this is technically done, but it sounded like an interesting idea.
- It was noted that comments probably are not an accurate cross-section of your readers (most readers don’t comment). From what I recall, there was also not much enthusiasm for responding to comments from readers. For example, it was argued (not sure by who) that one is often better off just ignoring the comments. I would note that I do read all of the comments (or almost all) offered in this forum. And I do respond from time to time (although, I am not sure that’s always a good idea). My sense, though, was that my fellow panelists were not in the habit of actually responding to reader’s comments in the comments section of a blog post.
- On a related note, I also noted how odd it was responding to people who adopted some of the “unusual” names you see in the comments section.
- Brad noted that he had to spend time policing comments at the Sports Economist (in other words, comments can tax a person’s time). The issue of policing comments has led some people – like Greg Mankiw – to eliminate comments at his blog. Basketball Prospectus also doesn’t seem to allow comments at their Unfiltered Blog (at least, I can’t see where one would comment). So the downside to comments have led some people to just eliminate this feature from their blog. All of the people on our panel, though, allow comments on their blog.
One last note on comments… I did note that I have taken the unusual step of essentially turning The Wages of Wins Journal over to the people who previously wrote comments. And I think that experiment is working out well.
Beyond these issues, we also spent a bit of time discussing the Dunning-Kruger effect (discussed in this forum and recently at the New York Times) and the issue of “truthiness” (a subject raised in an article Dennis had us read from Public Choice). This latter discussion centered on the tendency of people going to blogs that already confirmed what they believed.
Let me close with one last discussion. This occurred before the panel actually started. Kevin and Justin briefly discussed the virtue of Twitter. Kevin says his Twitter feed has quite a following. Justin wasn’t sure why people bothered. It was interesting to see – in a discussion of new forms of communication (i.e. blogs) – skepticism of the latest method of communication. I will add, although Kevin makes a good case for Twitter, I am not planning on doing this anytime soon. At least – as everyone can see – I can’t see how I could say anything within the limits of Twitter.
Okay, I think that is all I remember. Hopefully I can offer – in the next few weeks — another comment discussing some of the research that was presented. In the meantime, I look forward to your comments on this post (and really, I do read these).
Update: Seth Gitter – one of the sports economists at our meeting – also offered a comment on this panel. Seth, though, was much faster. His comment appeared the day of the panel.
– DJ
Wages of Wins Journal 
brgulker
July 20, 2010
It may benefit the NAASE if someone could run a regression analysis to determine what actually produces good notes and what the peak production for good note taking is. For too long, decision makers have simply relied on the wow factor generated by Picaso-esque doodles while ignoring the simpler, less obvious skills that actually correlate with informative notes.
TBall
July 20, 2010
Responding to comments is important if you want comments and/or if you want a blog post to be discussed among readers.
If I tell you how I see things and never acknowledge your views, you will draw the conclusion that I don’t care what you have to say. If you don’t care what I have to say, why should I give you feedback? Then the comments are not written to give feedback to you, but only to talk about you or talk about your post to others. That is when the comments really devolve.
I will say that I think you spent more than 20 minutes on my post and you didn’t write it.
When does the panel take on podcasts and social media?
dberri
July 20, 2010
Tball,
I got the sense that the Freakonomics authors never go into their comment section. And I don’t think Henry and Kevin do much commenting either. But I agree. There should be some give and take (then again, feeding trolls just keeps them going, so there is a balance here).
And I guess I did spend more than 20 minutes editing your post. But I didn’t mind.
As for podcast and other social media… I think we thought it was a big step that we were blogging. My sense is academics are always behind the times when it comes to technology. I remember when we moved from chalk boards to power points. Not an easy transition (and many are still not on board).
dberri
July 20, 2010
And brgulker is funny :)
Joe
July 20, 2010
There are plenty of sites that implement voting on comments.
I think digg.com is a pretty clean example of it.
shawnfuryan
July 20, 2010
I think that the comments from this community add a lot of value. I think that if your blog covers the right subject (i.e. one that lends itself to reasonably intelligent discussion and debate and attracts the sort of people who have something constructive to add to the discussion), then putting forth the effort to cultivating discussion on the original post can improve the blog.
Commenters can give you ideas for new posts. They can also check your work and point out the weaker parts of your arguments, which could ultimately improve your blog.
Subjective observation though leads me to believe that the size of a website/blog is inversely proportional to the quality of the comments, unless there is an effective system for filtering out bad comments.
arturogalletti
July 20, 2010
Really interesting stuff. It’s intriguing that it now has a more personal meaning for me now. I personally like comments but you have to be open to people having completely different opinions from you, but more than once I’ve had fantastic ideas from a comment.
And brgulker is funny :-)
Austin
July 20, 2010
Basketball Prospectus has an email response system, and they’re quite good about it. One article was posted late at night; I read it soon after, and then emailed Kevin Pelton with some followup questions (this was the long contract discussion). By the next morning he had posted a pagelong reply to my email on the unfiltered blog! I was very impressed.
I think that some of the differences when using email response are:
-No discussion between commenters
-No instant gratification (ie higher cost of commenting) thus fewer emails than comments
-Requires blogger to deal with a greater volume of mail personally
etc
I could see emails being most effective if they were occasionally accumulated in a mailbag-type exercise, which would allow many short followups at once.
Kevin Pelton
July 20, 2010
Good discussion. Twitter is in some ways a happy medium between comments and funneling everything through e-mail. Because Twitter is public, it’s possible to have group discussions, but trolling is infrequent and easy to tune out.
For the record, Basketball Prospectus is planning to implement the same commenting system used at Baseball Prospectus, but it’s taken some time to make that possible because the Baseball system relies on user names that are already in place there with the subscription model.
khandor
July 20, 2010
The concept of voting on the quality of a blog comment brings to mind the content of “The Federalist Papers” and one’s notion of whether, or not, authentic quality is what rises from the rubble asociated with the “free vote” process in society at-large.
arturogalletti
July 20, 2010
Khandor,
I point you to Federalist #10. I would argue that the fact that we now have a WOW network with multiple contributors creates a defacto representative democracy that protects us from “factions” (i.e trolling) . Additionally Dave acts as a supreme court providing checks and balances.
Alvy
July 20, 2010
It took me about three mins to read your post, but only 20 seconds to read Seth Gitter’s post. I preferred your rambling, dry humor more so than Gitter’s direct address.
Ignoring comments would be a good idea if your post somehow always received 300 comments in a single day. It would also be a good idea if you can guarantee that commentators, as opposed to yourself, can answer other commentators’ questions properly (weird that the burden shifts).
Because this blog has been around for a few years, it has developed a particular style (your deliberately slow manner of explaining information), has accumulated several readers and now a few contributors. So, changing the tone, the limit of words, etc., wouldn’t be entirely beneficial to helping improve your writing, attracting newer readers or comments, nor truly improve the quality of the work (how can it when this blog is capable of sharing several distinct voices now). Interest or topic over communication is what I’m suggesting.
In short, the usefulness of a blog, is something you should have decided before ever starting one. I assume you’ve made that decision long before the start of July, and certainly have obtain great results.
dberri
July 20, 2010
I should note… I have been quite impressed with how questions can (and often are) addressed by others in the comment section. I am not sure that happens as often with other blogs.
Austin
July 20, 2010
Oh, I forgot to say – I at least definitely prefer longer blog posts. Shorter posts are generally for links or pointing out something else (like Freakonomics), whereas research and explanation like this should be accompanied by more content.
arturogalletti
July 20, 2010
Hey I put up a new post.
It includes my personal stat spreadsheet for every player & team for the 2009-2010 season (if you’re into that sort of thing) :-)
http://arturogalletti.wordpress.com/2010/07/20/predictive-stats-bad-metrics-correlation-in-the-nba/
Should be called, why I will never be on John Hollinger’s X’mas list
Evan
July 21, 2010
re: why academics blog
1. truthfully, most academics blog to sell books. while it might not be your marginal motivation, it’s probably your overall motivation.
2. DJ blogs because he want to see his idea of NBA productivity adopted.
szr
July 21, 2010
I’m not sure we need to get so theoretical about why we blog or comment or respond to comments. Isn’t it simply because we enjoy reading and thinking about economic analysis of sports?
I mean, I have plenty of friends who like sports, a few friends who like reading economic analysis, but zero friends who like both activities at the same time. Here I can find people who share my interests and agree that there are fundamental confusions associated with conventional wisdom about sports that lead owners/analysts/others to make systematic mistakes.
kevin
July 21, 2010
Did Rick Horrow come, Dave?
The next time you see him, you can tell him for me he still sucks at basketball.
And he sucked at baseball too. But at least in baseball, he could hit it a long way if he made contact. He had the ugliest “jumpshot” you ever saw.
But, all kidding aside, he had a mind like a steel trap and was very quick witted. We got along very well. Talk about type-A though. Criminy.
marparker
July 21, 2010
Arturo’s post is a really good read. You guys should check it out.
Seth Gitter
July 21, 2010
Dave I really enjoyed the panel, this blog post and thanks for the link. Other than maybe Brad DeLong or Becker/Posner most blogs have shorter posts. I think it’s great you can generate so much content and I think there is room for both short and long blogs. I don’t want to spend the time to write that much on a consistent basis, but I hope you enjoyed your 20 second of reading my blog Ally.
I think I blog more for myself than for anyone else though. As a previous commenter suggested a lot of academic blog for book sales or influence. I’m pretty sure my blog will have little of either. I blog as Wolfers suggests to improve my thinking and ability to convey economic concepts. I also like the conversation it starts with my colleagues and friends, who seem to be my main readers.
brgulker
July 21, 2010
On topic, I love this blog, not just because of what Dr. Berri (and others) contribute in the posts, but also because of the active commenters and dialogue.
When I first was referred to this blog by a friend, I was pretty blown away, to the point where I ordered the book immediately and read it in a weekend. But I had plenty of questions. I’m not trained in statistics beyond some rudimentary training as it relates to the Social Sciences. Reading some of the commenters who do possess advanced knowledge in this area has been very helpful.
If it weren’t for this blog, where would one get that type of information in an interactive setting? I can’t think of any place.
khandor
July 21, 2010
arturogalletti,
re: “I would argue that the fact that we now have a WOW network with multiple contributors creates a defacto representative democracy that protects us from “factions” (i.e trolling)”
Of particular interest is the difference in opinion which exists between those who believe that there needs to be “protection” for “us” [i.e. who properly defines what qualifies as “us”, to begin with; and, is that singular definition permanent] from “factions” [i.e. whether, or not, they are considered trolls is a slightly different topic], in the first place.
khandor
July 21, 2010
btw …
re: the topic of email communication with commentors
If/when you operate a reputable blog and someone takes the time to communicate with you, directly, via email, so as to refrain from needlessly bunging-up the regular goings-on at that blog, then, it is good policy, and basic politeness, to respond to that person, in-kind, via email.
My two cents worth
Chicago Tim
July 21, 2010
So, I’ve lost count, but did we get a review of every team during the 2009-10 season? And is it too soon to start looking at the 2010-11 season? At least some teams seem to have their roster filled.
I’ve decided I’m still interested, even if Miami should win in a cakewalk. The Chicago Bulls improved greatly, and the race for the 2, 3, and 4 spot in the East will be worth watching. Heck, I’m even curious whether Miami will set a new record for total wins or consecutive wins.
Plus, we should be prepared for no NBA basketball (and maybe no NHL hockey or NFL football?!?) in 2011-12.
arturogalletti
July 21, 2010
khandor,
By having an this forum be an open one available to a mass audience (and frequently linked by ESPN), this blog becomes more of a broad coalition of ideas and opinions as opposed to a small group of like minded individual. As is Montesquieu thesis this has inherent weakness to inner squabbling ad “factions”. Factions in this case are opinionated commenters who try to lend credence to their viewpoints through repetition. What we are trying to protect is the open nature of this forum for it’s readers. My argument remains that the presence of well informed & active advocates have kept this forum from descending into chaos and dissolution.
Tom Mandel
July 23, 2010
I don’t know about “descending into chaos and dissolution” — boredom usually comes first and lasts long enough that everyone just tunes out! — but both the posts and the comments here are terrific in my view.
Of course, there’s a certain amount of trolling, as there is of pointless “here here”ing. Can’t be avoided.
But it is the quality of the questions raised in Dave’s posts that sets the tone — count me a happy participant! :)