04/25/24
August 21, 2008
US softball team denied gold; Ueno dominant: Losing for the first time since 2000, the U.S. softball team was denied a chance for a fourth straight gold medal Thursday, beaten 3-1 by Japan. Yukiko Ueno, Japan's remarkably resilient right-hander, shut down the Americans and handed them their first loss since Sept. 21, 2000 at the Sydney Games.
Euno 409 pitches, 28 innings; in less than 48 hours, and 1 run allowed in the Gold medal final.
posted by knowsalittle to olympics at 10:15 AM - 9 comments
I appreciate the posts, but you shouldn't cut and paste the lead from news stories. Put your own spin on the story, write your own headline and remove the dateline.
posted by rcade at 11:04 AM on August 21, 2008
I did edit the headline. My point was about Ueno and I mentioned her in it and the lead did not. I was lambasted in the past for over-editorializing when I did as you suggest. I will remove the dateline from now on. Thanks for cleaning this one up and deleting the other post so many took offense to.
posted by knowsalittle at 11:50 AM on August 21, 2008
Knowsalittle I've found that when posting links one should use the writing space as an opportunity to give other users an idea of what the link is about. You don't have to necessarily cut and paste from the article to provide some good substance. Of course this should be as unbiased as possible, with opinions being put in the comments.
posted by Ying Yang Mafia at 04:16 PM on August 21, 2008
I do feel the need to jump in and say that eleven of the last twenty-five posts were direct copies of at least part of the article lead. So while I am sure that it is not preferred, and I think it is even mentioned in the site guidelines, copying the article lead has become fairly commonplace.
Though, I do agree that the personal touch is a big part of why most of us come to this site. Not just to read a rehash of an AP article.
posted by opel70 at 04:41 PM on August 21, 2008
Copying a part of the article can be effective when done well. However it should be put in quotes or italicized.
posted by justgary at 06:08 PM on August 21, 2008
I was lambasted in the past...
Lambasted is a bit strong of a word, don't cha think?
I recall someone pointing out to you that it's frowned upon but you weren't ripped for it. But there's a difference between editorializing and using your own wording. State the facts in the FPP, save your opinion for the comments, and everything will be all hunky-dory. Oh yeah, and watch out with the USA-centric posts, I've been nailed on that one as well.
By the way, so sad for the USA team, congrats to Japan.
posted by BoKnows at 02:34 AM on August 22, 2008
Ironically, this may be the ammo that softball can use to try and get back in the Olympics (although I think it's hard to make the case that one loss = parity, even in such a high-stakes game).
posted by lil_brown_bat at 09:41 AM on August 22, 2008
Thanks everyone for their useful comments about posting, but this thread was about an incredible performance by an athlete that may have been one of the finest in Olympic team sport history. It seems only l l b and BoKnows got it. I am sure to sound defensive at this point, but the truth of the matter is that the sector of this posting wasn't "posting methods", it was Olympics.
PS. Please bring back the simple link, bold and italics selections during comments. I asked earlier to have an explanation of the HTML tags, but it was ignored.
posted by knowsalittle at 09:06 PM on August 22, 2008
I propose that Ueno's performance in the medal rounds of the Softball tournament is the #1 performance by any athlete in a team sport so far in these Olympics. Absolutely incredible stamina and mental toughness, along with some good fielding and timely hitting for support, made her unstoppable. Team USA did hand over at least one run in the Gold final game with poor fielding, but Ueno was able to strand runners by team USA when it mattered.