BOTF 2010: The Trail of Tiers

BOTF 2010: The Trail of Tiers
by Inkberrow
02/04/2010, 4:54 PM #

It's been almost exactly two years since this thread's celebrated debut. Hence, it's time to reset this latter-day homage to that most hallowed of BOTF traditions: the objective arranging of regular posters into ranked groups or subcategories. This BOTF Hierarchizing Imperative, for all its everyday essentiality, is not an easy master to serve, objectively speaking. Nor is the task of compiling this year's rankings any simpler than in 2008 and 2009. In fact, due to a variety of factors, this year is easily the most challenging Trail of Tiers yet, not least because I myself am no longer a full-fledged BOTF regular, a designation I'd proudly worn since mid-2001 (9/11 changed everything). As many of you are aware, something unprecedented in Fary history occurred last fall. A coterie of hothouse-flower Obama bots fled the no holds barred BOTF public debating society four months ago in the face of pointed, superior criticisms of their idol, to comiserate and gladhand elsewhere on the Fray with little or no challenges or threats to their indolent conformity. Because of some personal issues I'd as soon not discuss here now (hint: elective surgery), I accepted their discreet invitation to join them on their new board as a token conservative, in a nod to diversity for appearance's sake. Meanwhile, there are worse persons to be than Clarence Thomas. Check-book! Bennies! Eff you, if you don't like it. If you'd come from my neighborhood....

Thankfully, my remarkable powers of observation and evaluation have not waned one jot for all the upheavals on BOTF this past year. Nor has my fabled candor. Once said, and hardly subject to question at that, the flight to Schmutzie's Avignon and the ensuing Geezeronian Captivity remain but one sign and portent in these heady, fevered days on the Fray, which, so many now noise abroad, will be our very Last Days on Slate. So I will need to be at my full strength to pull this off, for those with eyes to see and listening flaps to hear. There have been changes and rumors of changes: board has risen against board, and format against format. Posters shall seek bans, but will not find them; and posters shall desire to leave, but the leaving shall flee from them. Lies shall become as truth, and the evil shall be worshiped as the good. Let him that hath understanding count the new number of the Post, for it is the number of a man, and his number is Five hundred. Yeah, and in ranking the New BOTF, do I grade on a curve, or do I let the Tiers flow as if from the fountains of Yore? Objectively speaking, whether the Captivity claimed the very cream of BOTF's intellect and the very flower of her imagination, or whether a few disgruntled, malevolent half-wits shambled off under cover of darkness to a subterranean, one-bed hovel---either way, the Tierscape has changed materially, in absolute terms. Are either the Third and Fourth tiers are now impoverished, or the First and Second? None of them? How does markedly fewer Regulars overall impact the rankings, if at all?

Methinks the curve has moved substantially, to retain the integrity of the Tiers, but only within certain parameters, to maintain the integrity of the Tiers. As always, the listed order within the Tiers is nearly random.


First Tier:

Kira Argounova; Betty the Crow; Angel of Dearth; Urquhart; Demosthenes; anxious_mofo; Baltimore Aureole; Tartuffe; Dawn Coyote; not abel; thelyamhound; Ducadmo;


Second Tier:

DallasNE; Gatewood; Woolley; JustOffal; JackDallas; RacistBastard/GagMeWithASpoon/­etc.; another_liberal; Pace; UnsightlyVermin; NickD; Leg_Iron; Sashal 12; Liberick; Boca; Wrylee; Mom; sodak; WasLTT; PumpkinSeed; Your Stupid; Rat


Third Tier:

Michael09; Ralph Wiggum; Beachhouse; electric fence; Days; HAP; Skeptical: ZamZam; JMADISON; JV-12; No Hablo; konraad64; watt4Bob; plsgt-1; Dr.H


Fourth Tier:

LilMacg, et al; LaurieAnnM; El Cid; SpeakerNancy/Contempo; JanZ; firstphone; MaryAnne; Sgt. Rock; Ollies Ellen/Ellen's Marmalade et al; moonbirdshadow; BadunaMarius