Author Topic: WNFF Blog (2014)  (Read 11290 times)

0 Members and 1 Guest are viewing this topic.

Offline Squab

  • Global Moderator
  • ****
  • Posts: 4528
  • me lookin at the bullpen
WNFF Blog (2014)
« Topic Start: February 14, 2014, 05:28:59 PM »
I've been thinking it would be cool if the members of WNFF collaborated to write a blog that could go on the site (or at least link from the site).
Here are a few reasons why:
  • I frequently see users post longer and more well thought out ideas in a thread, but they don't usually get the attention they deserve.
  • It would be cool to have a place where the random questions that people ask that require some research could be answered.
  • It could be a nice outlet for people to express their opinions on a player or topic instead of just stating that they hate something. Controversial opinions could be explored in a neutral format.
  • The number of topics is huge, and could attract fans that weren't just Nats fans. For example, a good analysis of the recent Lobaton-Karns trade could be of general interest to a lot of baseball fans.
  • It would be a good way to attract people who've never seen the site before.
  • Honestly, who wouldn't like more Nats reading material?

My initial thought is that anyone could contribute with minimal peer review. No restriction either way on length beyond a couple of paragraphs, no restriction on content beyond general baseball (doesn't even need to be Nationals related, ie we could chime in on the Teheran extension). I find it hard to believe that an active community this size couldn't write 3 or 4 (or much more) interesting things a week.

The activity could vary, I could see posting only things that pertained to baseball a couple times a week, or perhaps game day thread summaries that incorporated the best quotes from our community. Maybe a mix of both.

It seems to me that there is a lot of potential for fun topics and a big community that could enjoy them.

Does this interest anyone? Any general thoughts?
 

While this idea did not get off the ground in 2014, the related idea of a partnership with a blog was brought up again in 2017.  The link: http://www.wnff.net/index.php?topic=34918.msg1818285#msg1818285 . I bumped this to show some of the ideas folks generated in the past. Please comment in the new thread. JCA

Offline PowerBoater69

  • Posts: 14263
    • Twitter
Re: WNFF Blog
« Reply #1: February 14, 2014, 06:19:33 PM »
What's it pay?

Offline Squab

  • Global Moderator
  • ****
  • Posts: 4528
  • me lookin at the bullpen
Re: WNFF Blog
« Reply #2: February 14, 2014, 06:23:03 PM »

Offline Terpfan76

  • Posts: 3924
  • ΜΟΛΩΝ ΛΑΒΕ
Re: WNFF Blog
« Reply #3: February 14, 2014, 06:33:58 PM »

Offline JCA-CrystalCity

  • Global Moderator
  • ****
  • Posts: 39277
  • Platoon - not just a movie, a baseball obsession
Re: WNFF Blog
« Reply #4: February 15, 2014, 12:30:06 PM »
But seriously, folks - I wonder what advantages a blog has over new threads and maybe more active moderating or content watching. 

I think a few posters are very good on certain subjects.  For example, I think PC tracks the financial issues closely, Welch chimes in with some interesting historical posts, and  a few folks are pretty adept with some of the stat analytical stuff, and there are some folks who are good at skills analysis / scouting.

I agree that good posts often get buried.  I used to be a fan of keeping posts on the same subject in one thread, especially when we'd have 3 or 4 threads on the same subject on the first couple of pages of the clubhouse, but I think now that may contribute to posts getting buried.  Perhaps rather than a linked blog, all we need is to encourage folks with thread-worthy posts to start new threads, or even to split out posts in longer threads that could be their own threads? 

I think it might be good to have an "editorial board" that suggests break outs of interesting posts to prevent burials of good topics for discussion.  On the other hand, if we had an editorial board, then they could control a blog for content.  I don't know the technical aspects of a blog and whether the programming is tough, but I'm guessing that DinoBoy and ModeratorDoge are up for that.

I don't have a strong opinion one way or the other. 

One more quick thought - a few contributors are maintaining blogs, like Evolution33.  Maybe the answer is to link to their blogs and put aspiring bloggers in touch with them?

Offline Nathan

  • Posts: 10726
  • Wow. Such warnings. Very baseball. Moderator Doge.
Re: WNFF Blog
« Reply #5: February 15, 2014, 01:16:32 PM »
I'd assume Blogger or Wordpress are fairly simple to set up and use.

Offline Squab

  • Global Moderator
  • ****
  • Posts: 4528
  • me lookin at the bullpen
Re: WNFF Blog
« Reply #6: February 15, 2014, 02:33:15 PM »
On the technical side of things, I would advocate putting spinning up a dedicated cloud server with blogging software and just making it subdomain (a DNS A Record) so that blog.wnff.net would point to it. That would be the easiest thing. Then all you'd have to do to contribute is go to blog.wnff.net/wp-admin or /ghost or whatever software you used.

Offline DPMOmaha

  • Posts: 22875
Re: WNFF Blog
« Reply #7: February 15, 2014, 02:34:52 PM »
What about something where we have a top posts section or something like that where if we have something like that that's really good or helpful or informative we can have a place for that so they get seen more easily.

Offline Squab

  • Global Moderator
  • ****
  • Posts: 4528
  • me lookin at the bullpen
Re: WNFF Blog
« Reply #8: February 15, 2014, 06:35:51 PM »
What about something where we have a top posts section or something like that where if we have something like that that's really good or helpful or informative we can have a place for that so they get seen more easily.

At the moment that is basically the stickied posts in The Clubhouse. It might be cool to make it more visible though.


Does anyone else have thoughts on this? Interested in contributing if something were set up?

Offline Mattionals

  • Posts: 5707
Re: WNFF Blog
« Reply #9: February 15, 2014, 07:17:59 PM »
I remember when MDS kept telling me to keep my posts to three sentences, lol. :mg:

I've tried the blog thing but honestly I realize that I am no web designer and I'd rather focus on writing than actually trying to generate traffic by having a half way decent looking page.  This is why I shut down my blog.  I like the idea of linking to posters' blogs, but I like the idea of having a WNFF blog.  I'd love to do something like that fulltime if it wasn't for that damn job thing I have...

Offline tomterp

  • Global Moderator
  • ****
  • Posts: 33783
  • Hell yes!
Re: WNFF Blog
« Reply #10: February 16, 2014, 09:58:56 AM »
Maybe if we had a blog Chief could get an invite to one of those Nationals Park blogger's nights.


Offline blue911

  • Posts: 18471
Re: WNFF Blog
« Reply #11: February 16, 2014, 10:45:29 AM »
Maybe if we had a blog Chief could get an invite to one of those Nationals Park blogger's nights.

oooohhhh, then he could hang out with SBF320  :az:

Offline tomterp

  • Global Moderator
  • ****
  • Posts: 33783
  • Hell yes!
Re: WNFF Blog
« Reply #12: February 16, 2014, 06:21:20 PM »
oooohhhh, then he could hang out with SBF320  :az:

 :spaz:

Offline RobDibblesGhost

  • Posts: 31426
Re: WNFF Blog
« Reply #13: February 16, 2014, 07:50:19 PM »
oooohhhh, then he could hang out with SBF320  :az:

It looks like he hasn't done much in the last 3 years.  Good.  By the way, take a look at  this: https://twitter.com/Fake_Nats320 

I bet someone on WNFF owns that account :lmao:

Offline The Chief

  • Posts: 31799
    • http://www.wnff.net
Re: WNFF Blog
« Reply #14: February 17, 2014, 09:43:48 AM »
I can handle the technical side of things, but I'm not much of a content generation expert.  I'd be happy to support the idea if there is sufficient interest, but a blog can't be quite as laissez-faire as a message board, so we'd need a reasonably firm commitment from at least a few people to "generate" pieces.

Offline blue911

  • Posts: 18471
Re: WNFF Blog
« Reply #15: February 17, 2014, 09:55:45 AM »
I can handle the technical side of things, but I'm not much of a content generation expert.  I'd be happy to support the idea if there is sufficient interest, but a blog can't be quite as laissez-faire as a message board, so we'd need a reasonably firm commitment from at least a few people to "generate" pieces.

Why not cut and paste any of colander's posts?

Offline The Chief

  • Posts: 31799
    • http://www.wnff.net
Re: WNFF Blog
« Reply #16: February 17, 2014, 10:03:47 AM »
Why not cut and paste any of colander's posts?

:lmao:

Offline JCA-CrystalCity

  • Global Moderator
  • ****
  • Posts: 39277
  • Platoon - not just a movie, a baseball obsession
Re: WNFF Blog
« Reply #17: February 17, 2014, 12:24:50 PM »
Well, we could maybe set up an editorial board.  5 contributors as the ones who approve posts after some self nominations to keep the blog posts on quality, and give the writer or an editor approval authority for comments on the post to keep the inane stuff out.

Offline Squab

  • Global Moderator
  • ****
  • Posts: 4528
  • me lookin at the bullpen
Re: WNFF Blog
« Reply #18: February 17, 2014, 12:35:38 PM »
Well, we could maybe set up an editorial board.  5 contributors as the ones who approve posts after some self nominations to keep the blog posts on quality, and give the writer or an editor approval authority for comments on the post to keep the inane stuff out.

That makes sense, no reason that the reviewers would even have to contribute, though they certainly could. I feel like besides basic requirements like decent grammar/spelling/punctuation/language and a vaguely baseball or WNFF community type topic there shouldn't be too much restriction.

Offline Lintyfresh85

  • Posts: 35128
  • World Champions!!!
Re: WNFF Blog
« Reply #19: February 17, 2014, 01:48:59 PM »
If this is a thing... I could contribute once in a while, if needed.

Offline houston-nat

  • Posts: 19050
Re: WNFF Blog
« Reply #20: February 17, 2014, 03:24:46 PM »
I could contribute on a very irregular basis, like "whenever the hell I have time", but my day job is editing content people send me, so being on the editorial board would be pretty easy work for me. Honestly, still amazed people pay me money to do it.

Offline Squab

  • Global Moderator
  • ****
  • Posts: 4528
  • me lookin at the bullpen
Re: WNFF Blog
« Reply #21: February 18, 2014, 06:35:14 PM »
Are there any other people interested in contributing if this were a thing?
So far I've seen:
Mattionals
Linty
Houston
NJ Ave (via PM)
Myself

Offline nobleisthyname

  • Posts: 2674
Re: WNFF Blog
« Reply #22: February 18, 2014, 08:23:51 PM »
I always enjoy shoeshine's posts. Someone should see if he's interested.

Offline tomterp

  • Global Moderator
  • ****
  • Posts: 33783
  • Hell yes!
Re: WNFF Blog
« Reply #23: February 18, 2014, 08:37:41 PM »
I always enjoy shoeshine's posts. Someone should see if he's interested.

Haven't seen ol' SSB around much lately.  Think he's got a young'n keeping him moving. 


Offline blue911

  • Posts: 18471
Re: WNFF Blog
« Reply #24: February 18, 2014, 09:15:45 PM »
I could do a needledick of the week column where I make up crap about people that piss me off