2012 BTB Honor Roll: Recognizing Significant Contributions To BTB

In what has become a little of a six-monthly tradition, today we're going to look at some BTB user stats from the first six months of 2012. After all, 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 found our way here via a link to an article on the front page. But we kept coming back, and eventually even 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: a vibrant and growing community.

Each day, the community changes a little bit as new members sign up for BTB, and add their voice to the community by starting to comment and eventually perhaps even putting up a FanShot or even a FanPost. So this is a post that's not going to be about the Cowboys. Instead, this is where we say thank YOU. You the reader, you the commenter, you the contributor.

After the break we look at some BTB stats from the first half of 2012 to identify who the most prolific BTB members were, both in terms of quantity and quality, and recognize them for their contributions.

Let's start with topline stats for 2012 so far:

• Nine different front page writers combined to bring you 828 front page posts so far this year, narrowly beating the 812 posts we had at the same time in 2011. That's a lot of posts for 182 days and translates to 4.5 posts per day. If nothing else, I hope we've kept you entertained.
• 235 BTB members wrote a combined 616 Fanpost so far this year, up from the 479 at the same time last year.
• 229 BTB members published a total of 919 Fanshots in 2012, more than twice the 479 we saw in the first half of 2011.

We currently have eight writers on the masthead toiling away to bring you the best non-accredited Cowboys coverage you can find. Hopefully, you've found that each writer has a style of his own, adds a different perspective and adds a unique element to what makes BTB such a great place to be. Here's how many posts each of us have contributed to the front page so far this year:

A big part of the success for both BTB and other SB Nation sites is the FanPost section. This is where you get a much broader spectrum of opinions, topics and styles than you get on the front page, but it's also where the heart of the community is beating the strongest. 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.

The table below lists the 15 top contributors in the FanPost section. I've sorted the tables by number of FanPosts in 2012, by the number of recommendations (rec's) received and by the number of comments generated by the FanPost and the ensuing discussion.

The FanPost writer's currency of choice is the rec'. A high number of rec's will leave a writer in a gleeful state for days, while low or no rec's can feel like a huge disappointment, especially if you've put a lot of hard work into a post. So don't be stingy with those rec's. 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.

When we looked at the BTB stats for 2011, we introduced a couple of efficiency metrics in addition to the volume metrics above. So once again, we'll rank contributors by RpFPs (Recommendations per FanPost) and CpFPs (Comments per FanPost)

Here's a look at the BTB Top dogs in terms of recommendations and comments per post (min. three posts to qualify). You'll find most of the perennial BTB favorites on one of these lists.

If you click on the FanPosts tab at the top of the BTB front page, you'll be taken to an overview page for FanPosts. Once there, 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. Leafing through some of those posts can be quite entertaining. Try it out over the next couple of days, you won't be disappointed - and it's not like you're going to miss a lot of Cowboys action for the next four weeks anyway.

And last year, like every year before, many new FanPosts entered this FanPost Hall of Fame. Here are the ten most recommended FanPosts of 2012:

Many people think that the FanShot section is an empty wasteland, but far from it. The FanShot is alive and well on BTB, and in 2012 we're seeing record levels of FanShots and FanShot participation.

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

55 individual bloggers are mentioned by name in this post. If your name's not on any of the lists above, but you want to see your name up in the bright BTB lights, then simply post more stuff, more often!

Until then, thank you all for your great contributions.