BTB Honor Roll: Your Name Up In The Bright Lights

Folks, it's not like there is a lot of football going on right now, so if we can't celebrate the Cowboys, let's celebrate ourselves.

Think back to when you first stumbled across Blogging The Boys. Most of us probably came here because of what we read on the front page. Most of us likely kept coming back, and eventually signed up, because of the community. So today we give a big tip o' the ole hat to those members that have made significant contributions to making BTB what is is today. 

And because I'm such a numbers geek, those contributions are of course quantified. After the break we look at some BTB Stats from 2010 to identify who the top fanposters were in terms of both quantity and quality; we look at the much neglected fanshots; we look at comments; and we look at the storied history of the writers BTB has had on its front page in only two years.

Let's start with some topline 2010 stats.

• Ten different front page writers combined to bring you 1,080 posts last year, up from 872 posts in 2009. And we'll easily eclipse both those numbers this year. Per end of May this year, we were already at 717 front page posts.
• 402 BTB members wrote a combined for 1,150 FanPosts last year. This is roughly on the same level as the 1,270 we saw in 2009.
• 209 BTB members published a total of 855 Fanshots in 2010, significantly up from the 585 in 2009.
• All of you combined for 203,169 comments in 2009, and increased that to 215,409 in 2010. On average, that's almost 600 comments per day, spread out over an average of 3.0 front page posts, 3.1 FanPosts and 2.3 Fanshots per day.

Over the last two years, we've had 19 different writers contribute to the front page. Each of them had a unique voice, each had a unique point of view, and each helped build BTB into what it is today. Some of our former writers are still a part of the BTB community today, some are not. But each one put a lot of effort into BTB and paved the way for new writers like KD, rabble and myself, so here's a Texas sized hat tip to the BTB Veterans Association. Thanks, guys.

I must of course point out that Dave puts up most of the open game threads during a season. That easily works out to something between 80 and a 100 posts that shouldn't count against his tally. What's that you said, boss? They do? Okay then ... Dave is The Man.

One of the things that stand out to me at BTB and other SB Nation sites is the FanPost section. This is where you get the most direct feeling for the community that makes BTB what it is. You also get a much broader spectrum of opinions, topics and styles than you get on the front page. And until you've tried your hand at authoring a FanPost of your own, you may not realize how much time and effort most authors put into their FanPosts.

So this is where we recognize the FanPosters who invested the time and effort write a FanPost for your reading pleasure. The most prolific poster last year was KD Drummond, who has since graduated to the front page. He is closely followed by Fan in Thick and Thin who blinded us with science on many occasions with his very insightful stat-based posts. Lissyyyyy's name-change meant I had to manually go through all these lists to add up the totals of his highly anticipated posts. Jeterian 2's youthful enthusiasm got us 23 posts, and the ever optimistic 5Blings rounds out the top five by number of FanPosts. Hats off to all the others as well.

Recommendations are the currency the advanced FanPoster trades in. They are the most gratifying thing for most authors because they show a special appreciation for the work the author has put into his FanPost. So don't be stingy with those rec's.

5Blings has his finger on the pulse of Cowboys Nation and often manages to capture the general sentiment exceedingly well in his unique posts, which got a whole boatload of well-deserved rec's last year. Fan in Thick and Thin statistical musings also have hit a nerve here at BTB and you have rewarded his posts generously. Chandus has published hands down some of the best play-by-play content I have seen anywhere, and he may be one of the best pure football guys on the blog. G_SWAG has one of the highest Rec Per Post values on the blog, but I have to call him out as a lazy bum. Write more, Swag, people love your stuff. Iron Fist a/k/a The Immortal Iron Fist a/k/a The Immortal Iron Fist AKA AFB a/k/a Airforce Bat gets the silent treatment from me as punishment for his frequent and name changes, but he's been a strong contributor to the blog under whatever name incarnation he's chosen.

In terms of comments per post, 5Blings rules the roost. In fact, people have argued about whether his posts are nothing more than clever ruses to get the comment machine going. Yet last year, Blings finally cracked the 1,000 comment barrier for a single post with 1,003 comments, the most ever for a Fanpost on BTB. Lissyyyyy, FiTaT and TCBinNYC have shown to also be quite good at getting a good thread going, as have many others. For an extended list, look at the tables below to see who the top 15 FanPosters of 2010 were, ranked by number of FanPosts, number of recommendations and number of comments.

If you click on the FanPosts tab at the top of the front page, you'll be taken to the FanPost page, and once you've done that, I'd urge you to click on the most popular of all time option. This gives you the eternal list of the FanPosts with the highest number of rec's in the history of BTB. In a long and boring offseason, leafing through some of those posts can be quite entertaining.

And last year, like every year before, many new FanPosts entered this FanPost Hall of Fame. Here are the ten most recommended FanPosts of 2010:

Fanshots are the Rodney Dangerfield of BTB, they get no respect. Many people think that the Fanshot section is where FanPosts go to die, the secret burial ground of FanPosts guarded by the ever-watchful thebigham.

But the Fanshot is alive and well on BTB, and 2010 saw more Fanshots than ever before. Thebigham, lonewolfz28, what_the_crap, scottmaui and lissyyyyy earned their BTB laurels by posting a fanshot on average about every second week. 

And it's not like the Fanshot section is completely devoid of life. Two Fanshots in 2010 managed to generate the admittedly unusual number of 60 comments each. Lissyyyyy (or rather, quincyyyyy) wrote a scintillating 10 word fanpost on Lawrence Taylor that generated an astonishing 60 comments, and thebigham also got 60 comments on his epic prediction of a 9-7 record (after the Cowboys had just improved to 3-7).

Tip of the hat to all of you who posted fanshots, the top 15 are below.

Your name's not on any of the lists above? Keep in mind that these rankings are for 2010 only, so some of our newer posters haven't made it up these tables that far yet. I'll have a similar post up sometime in July in which we'll review the first half of 2011. And if you're not on those lists either, but want to see your name up in the bright BTB lights, post more stuff, more often.

Until then, thank you all for your witty, wacky, wild and wonderful contributions.