A Note About Becoming a BtB Author: Contributing to the Community Helps

by Sky Kalkman on Jul 1, 2009 10:36 AM EDT Comment 24 comments

When I recently put the call out for more contributors to BtB, I got a fair number of responses. (I think I've replied to everyone, so if you haven't heard from me, bug me again.) Some guys have already started writing (Tommy and Graham) and some I'm still exchanging emails with. One reason I'm hesitant to add some of the folks I've chatted with is that I'm not familiar with them or their work.

Now, I'm not the eternal judge of who's who in the baseball world, but when I can only find a few articles by you from six months ago, that's not a great resume, even if the articles are good. So, if you're somebody I've emailed with or another lurker wondering how you can write for BtB, here are some tips:

Be more active in the BtB community. It's kind of funny to hear people say they love the site and want to write for it, but they've never commented here before or don't even have an account. By commenting, you earn the respect of the authors and readers and can make your own niche in our community. Even better, write some FanPosts which would be along the lines of what you'd want to write for the site itself. They get almost as much attention as front page posts, and even get bumped to to the front page when they're good. If people are liking your writing, it's an easy transition over to being an official author. Probably the most straight-forward job interview out there.
Write consistently. That could be here, at your own blog, or at a group blog. Even writing once a week can be tough and it's nice to know you can do it. More writing also means you'll probably get better at writing, which, well, the perks of that are obvious.
Write from a unique angle. While we hate to admit it, there are certainly some stathead groupthink cliches: Joe Morgan sucks, fielding matters, regression regression regression. Those cliches have merit, but it's nice to read something different, and people like different.

Finally, a word on commenting. There are many ways to add to the conversation beyond supplying new information. Asking questions is a great idea -- ask for clarification, ask how you could take an idea in a different direction, ask if the assumptions made in the article are good ones, etc. Even us authors ask questions a large percentage of the time (you should see our email threads.) Or just say that you really liked a certain piece of the article and want to see more on that topic. Keep those comments coming -- they're awesome.

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As someone who will probably never write for BtB and will continue to only read and comment,

is it possible to do something to better organize your front page and make more articles at a time accessible? With the most recent additions your number of front-page contributing staff members has risen to (by my estimates) somewhere around eleventy-billion. There are sometimes enough articles posted in a day to completely fill the front page, and the pre-jump content that front page usually extends for at least a few pages of scrolling. There are substantially more articles written in a week than there are fanposts.

Perhaps some people should just remain fan posters. Not that I’m hating on anyone’s work, I think the stuff on this site is among the best and most accessible (and most consistently interesting, I don’t think I ever read a headline and just think “this is bullshit, next”) saber stuff on the internet. It’s just basically impossible to keep up. And I know you’re probably mainly limited by SBN in general, which is understandable because of the standardization, but which kind of sucks when you’re putting out so much actual substantive content.

Decrease runs scored?
Maybe.

Decrease winning? Never seen that proven.
-SFTU

by hazel on Jul 2, 2009 12:33 AM EDT reply actions 0 recs

Thanks for the feedback. Good stuff. (The ego-feeding, too.)

We’re making an effort to post less before the jump. It’s going to take more of an effort, but it’s a goal. One page-height per article, maximum, ideally less. Also, today the SBN tech team added the headlines to the most recent articles pushed off the front page to the bottom, so that should help, too. (New comment numbers would be nice, too, we’re pushing for that.)

Regarding FanPosts, I don’t think we’ll kick any current authors over there, but I’ve started using it for non-content posts and based on your feedback, I’ll continue to do that. I’m hoping (hint hint) more readers will start posting FanPosts, making it house more good content and cycle a bit faster. I’d actually love if SBN gave us the option of making the front page more magazine style, but that’s up to them, all I can do is beg.

Do you think we have too much content or just that it’s not organized well? Keep the ideas coming.

Beyond the Boxscore Not a member? Sign up.

by Sky Kalkman on Jul 2, 2009 8:52 AM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

The other baseball sites that I read most often are VEB, Driveline Mechanics, and THT.

Two of those basically have less content put together than this site does, so they don’t suffer the same organizational problems. THT has also expanded the amount of content that they post over the last couple of years and they basically did it by shrinking everything down to headlines and having three separate columns for postings.

You could do something like, say, having certain people post on certain days, cutting everything down to headlines, etc. I don’t think there’s too much content, but this site is basically organized the same way a site with three regular contributors who primarily post game threads is organized. Maybe you guys should just take over FishStripes. Seems like they have some empty real estate over there…

Decrease runs scored?
Maybe.

Decrease winning? Never seen that proven.
-SFTU

by hazel on Jul 2, 2009 5:17 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

Do you think "just headlines" would hurt traffic/readership?

I’m worried that without a paragraph of two, there’s nothing to entice people to read the article.

Although, I guess the chances of someone stumbling to our home page without know what’s going on isn’t too common. Most people stumble onto specific article pages through links, know our site well and read everything, or read via an RSS reader.

Beyond the Boxscore Not a member? Sign up.

by Sky Kalkman on Jul 2, 2009 5:49 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

Graphs always.

And bikinis before the jump helps readership.

If you were thinking, you wouldn't have thought that.

http://sonsofsamhorn.net/index.php?showforum=129

by Warden11 on Jul 2, 2009 9:30 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

That's something to consider,

personally I think it makes the front page better to look at, so there’s a drawback to it.

Decrease runs scored?
Maybe.

Decrease winning? Never seen that proven.
-SFTU

by hazel on Jul 3, 2009 2:20 AM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

On this front, how would the reader like it if we were to just have the headline/sentence or two after an article has been up 24 hours

Would allow more on the front page and still see the comments numbers

Jeff Zimmerman - Protecting the world from RBI's and Wins from my mom's guest house.

by Jeff Zimmerman (TucsonRoyal) on Jul 2, 2009 9:37 AM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

Hmm...

A moving jump line seems like a great idea. Maybe this could also be done for front page posts that get rec’d a lot – that alone would get most people to click through, so why take up extra space?

OverTheMonster - ALLERGEN WARNING: May contain peanut butter.

by bs.uf15bosox9bears23 on Jul 2, 2009 10:21 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

Regarding FanPosts

Almost everytime there has been a good one, Sky bumps it to the front page, which kind of defeats the purpose of making it a FanPost. Ditto with FanShots. I’m not saying Sky is wrong to do that, but it seems that there is just too much good content on this site no matter where you put it.

Derosa.

by vivaelpujols on Jul 4, 2009 9:20 AM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

I love that problem. ; )

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by Sky Kalkman on Jul 4, 2009 4:59 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

I miss seeeing contributions by some of the old writers...

like Jeff, Mark, and Cyril.

And like hazel(above) I think that there are often too many front page articles at once. Why can’t more of those be written as fanposts instead of stories?

by IM4Oakgal on Jul 2, 2009 4:09 AM EDT reply actions 0 recs

On the old writer front, I'm planning a series based on wandering the archives

That will hopefully put some focus on the great work they did when they were here. I’ll try to get the first couple up next week.

by Dan Turkenkopf on Jul 2, 2009 8:05 AM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

That sounds like a fun read.

by IM4Oakgal on Jul 3, 2009 5:10 AM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

I don't want to call out authors in this space, but if anyone (IM4Oakgal or hazel or whoever) wants to email me examples of articles that could be FanShots, go for it.)

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by Sky Kalkman on Jul 2, 2009 8:53 AM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

I'm mostly just a lurker...

but I have learned so much from being a regular reader of this site. Sky, I want to praise you for the way that you are growing this site…I can remember a time when it was just about as dead as a doornail but your great attention to it has paid off. I didn’t mean to make it sound as if I thought the site was better in the past. The site was not better then . I did grow to really like some of the regulars and the intent of my comment about past authors was meant only as a lament and a wish to see some new stories by them too. Great work here.

by IM4Oakgal on Jul 3, 2009 5:15 AM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

On this website as a writer

dos everything have to be sabermetrican applied or can there be someone like a general abseball person that keeps everyone updated?

No one goes there anymore, it's too crowded. - Yogi Berra

by trademan56 on Jul 10, 2009 2:11 PM EDT reply actions 0 recs

Like a transactions/news guy?

I think there’s definitely room for that. It might be a bit much to post a FanShot or FanPost for every single transaction, but it would be pretty sweet to have a summary of each day’s highlights as a regular feature. Or maybe a FanPost each day where everyone can share news and links they find. (Hey, maybe Tommy’s Daily Box Score column could serve as a place to share other cool baseball links we find each day…?)

And not all articles have to have numbers, definitely not. We’re just looking to up the quality level of baseball discussion and often that includes some quantitative analysis, but it’s certainly not necessary. There’s room for smartness of many types. You bring the intelligence and the everyone’s happy.

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by Sky Kalkman on Jul 10, 2009 2:18 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

thats something I used to do on my blog

but someone hacked it and destroyed it, But ya, thats something I would like to do, and I sent you an email

No one goes there anymore, it's too crowded. - Yogi Berra

by trademan56 on Jul 10, 2009 2:22 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

Start it up!

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by Sky Kalkman on Jul 10, 2009 2:29 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

so you give me permission to start making fanposts

and fanshots on transactions, and many things of that sort?

No one goes there anymore, it's too crowded. - Yogi Berra

by trademan56 on Jul 10, 2009 2:35 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

Many things? Uh...

But if you’re going to do something like a post a day with some quality information and others chime in and enjoy it, absolutely do it. Maybe ask others for suggestions at first?

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by Sky Kalkman on Jul 10, 2009 4:20 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs