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BTB By The Numbers: 2012 User Stats - Recognizing Significant Contributions To BTB

In what has become a little bit of a tradition here on BTB, today we're going to review some Blogging The Boys user stats from 2012. We identify who the most prolific BTB members were, both in terms of quantity and quality, and recognize them for last year's contributions. Is your name on one of the lists?

Tim Heitman-USA TODAY Sports

Here at Blogging The Boys, we are a vibrant and growing community with new members joining every day. Each day, our community changes a little bit as we welcome the new members to the blog and as new voices start commenting and posting FanPosts and FanShots.

And that community is the heart of BTB. Sure, we have some pretty good stuff on the front page, but chances are you are here right now just as much for the community interaction as you are for the front page articles. So today we take the time to give a big tip o' the old hat to those members that have made significant contributions to making BTB what it is today. As we look at the BTB Stats from 2012, we'll identify the most prolific BTB members both in terms of quantity and quality and check out the front page, the FanPosts and the Fanshots to find our honorees of the day.

And because I am what I am, all those contributions are of course quantified. Let's start with some topline 2012 stats.

  • Ten different front page writers slaved away in our virtual BTB sweatshop to bring you 1,804 front page posts in 2012, which is exactly ten posts more than in 2011 - but twice as much as in the two years before that ('10: 1,081, '09: 853). For a football blog that covers only sixteen regular season games (next year we'll start covering the playoffs for the Cowboys, I swear!), knocking out an average of almost five articles per day over the entire year is a pretty awesome job. At the very least, I think we've kept you well entertained.
  • 379 BTB members wrote a combined 1,336 Fanposts last year. That's right in line with what we've seen in previous years: ('11: 1,357, '10: 1,150, '09: 1,270).
  • 315 BTB members published a total of 1,539 Fanshots in 2012, continuing an upward trend ('11: 1,408, '10: 855, '09: 585) despite the challenges the new SB Nation design has presented for Fanshots. Those challenges will be addressed in a couple of weeks with a new upgrade to the site.
Front Page

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 in 2012:

2010 Front Page Writers
Writers
Posts
Dave Halprin 283
OCC 249
Rafael Vela
140
Aaron Novinger
114
rabblerousr 52
Paul Alexander
39
Brandon Worley 38
KD Drummond 23
Martin Long
12
Mike Fisher
8
2011 Front Page Writers
Writers
Posts
OCC 516
KD Drummond 432
Dave Halprin
284
rabblerousr 195
Tom Ryle 135
Kegbearer
62
Brandon Worley 11
Paul Alexander 11
- - - -
- -
- -
2012 Front Page Writers
Writers
Posts
OCC 510
Tom Ryle 309
Dave Halprin 302
KD Drummond
261
rabblerousr 169
Archie Barberio 158
CotySaxman 62
nobis60 12
Kegbearer 4
Brandon Worley 2
FanPosts

One of the highlights of the SB Nation platform, and a cornerstone of BTB, 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.

So give it up for all those FanPosters who invested the time and effort write a FanPost for your reading pleasure. Hands down the most prolific poster last year was ScarletO, who knocked out an astonishing 76 posts and has deservedly walked away with the FanPoster Of The Year Award. Ickesjb is the runner-up with 30 posts and is in turn followed closely by VAfan and Jonathan Stern who each offered up 29 posts for your reading pleasure. jdg4660 rounds out the top five of the most prolific posters. Hats off to those five and to all the other FanPosters as well.

What really gets a writer excited is when he sees the number of rec's increase for his posts. I know that from my own personal experience as a fanposter: 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. Rec's are the most gratifying thing for most authors because they show a special appreciation for the work the author has put into his FanPost.

ScarletO also walks off with the crown in terms of overall number of rec's by a huge margin. Think about this: 10% of the 4,778 total Fanpost recommendations on the site last year went to Scarlet. Very impressive. Next up are Ickesjb, Kegbearer, Hawkeye101 and sexililkitti who have all garnered a boatload recommendations for their musings.

ScarletO completes the trifecta by also garnering the most total comments. He is closely followed by 5Blings, who - despite penning only nine posts last year - continues raking in those comments by the bucket-load with posts that are a lot like Mardi Gras: Everyone steps out on the balcony and has something to say. For three years now, Blings has maintained an average comment count of about 330 comments per post. Very impressive.

For an extended list, look at the tables below to see who the top 15 FanPosters of 2012 are, ranked by number of FanPosts, number of recommendations and number of comments.

2012 No. Of Fanposts
Author
Fanposts
ScarletO
76
IckesJb 30
Jonathan Stern 29
VAfan 29
jdg4660 28
safwant 27
hookerhome 24
CharlesinChicago
23
ProBowlFactory
23
sexililkitti
23
Kegbearer
21
stegosaurus!
18
Blue Eyed Devil 17
HawkEye101/Archie
17
I am Ironman!!! 17
2012 Recommendations Received
Author
FanPosts Rec's
ScarletO
76 478
IckesJb
30 251
Kegbearer 21 207
Hawkeye101 17 196
TARHEEL PAUL 2 156
sexililkitti
23 146
The Real Dirk Gently 12 135
Blue Eyed Devil 17 133
5Blings 9 133
CoachGary
7
124
Tennessee_Jed
11 121
AntonioNickerson 16 118
Birddog26 8
104
Archie Barberio
17 100
Specific
14 89
2012 FanPost Comments Received
Author
FanPosts Comments
ScarletO 76 3,407
5Blings
9 3,007
Archie Barberio 17 2,437
hookerhome 24 1,449
VAfan
29 969
The Real Dirk Gently 12 887
Blue Eyed Devil 17 812
Ickesjb 30 806
Hawkeye101 17 774
Kegbearer 21 761
TARHEEL PAUL
2 737
sexililkitti 23 649
Birddog26 8 604
Tennessee_Jed 11 601
kdonegan 5 600

One thing I've been trying to hammer home over the last three years is that while volume stats like the ones above are nice to look at, efficiency stats are just as interesting. Which is why we have our own efficiency stats here on BTB: the RpFPs (or Recommendations per FanPost) and the CpFPs that measure the comments per FanPost.

With a minimum of five posts to qualify, the lists below highlight FanPost authors who may not be the most prolific writers on the blog but are certainly appreciated for their contributions. You'll find most of the perennial BTB favorites on one of these lists, where CoachGary, 5Blings, Birddog26, Scrimshaw!, Hakeye101, Archie Barberio, kdonegan and Omar Little all make the top five.

2012 Rec's per FanPost
Author
FanPosts RpFPs
CoachGary 7 17.7
5Blings 9 14.8
Birddog26 8 13.0
Scrimshaw! 7 12.1
Hawkeye101 17 11.5
The Real Dirk Gentry 12 11.3
Tennessee_Jed 11 11.0
Kegbearer 21 9.9
Ickesjb
30 8.4
Luke. 6 7.8
Blue Eyed Devil 17 7.8
Lissyyyyy 5 7.6
AntonioNickerson 16 7.4
Specific 14 6.4
sexililkitti 23 6.3
2012 Comments per FanPost
Author
FanPosts CpFPs
5Blings 9 334
Archie Barberio 17 143
kdonegan 5 120
Birddog26 8 76
Omar Little 5 74
The Real Dirk Gently 12 74
Plinkostar 7 73
Lissyyyyy 5 67
DCBlueStar
5 65
hookerhome
24 60
The Trenches
7 56
Tennessee_Jed 11 55
Blue Eyed Devil
17 48
Luke. 6 48
Hawkeye101
17 45

There’s something to be said for the low-volume, high-quality approach. It’s not just the frequent posters that make this place, and I (almost) always find it especially pleasing to open a new post by an unknown author.

Fanshots

Despite some challenges presented by the new site design, the FanShot is alive and moderately well on BTB, as 2012 saw more FanShots than ever before. Rena is the Queen of the FanShots, averaging one fanshot every second day. Her 147 Fanshots are even up from the 124 she posted in 2011. Fernie67, beWARE94, BoyfromOz and Jonathan Stern earned their BTB laurels by posting about one FanShot per week over the course of 2012.

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

2011 No. Of Fanshots
Author
Fanshots
Rena 147
Fernie67 71
beWARE94 47
BoyfromOz
45
Jonathan Stern 45
OCC 44
ProBowlFactory 39
thebigham 38
Lissyyyyy 34
Allan Uy 29
TARHEEL PAUL 27
Dub_TC 27
FiTaT 23
Seanrude 19
2011 Fanshot Comments Received
Author
Fanshots Comments
Rena 147 923
Jonathan Stern 45 542
thebigham 38 480
OCC 44 464
Lissyyyyy 34 463
Fernie67 71 441
TARHEEL PAUL 27 359
beWARE94 47 309
FiTat 23 280
Dub_TC 27 246
Nassau Cowboy
17 237
ProBowlFactory 39 222
Allan Uy
29 187
Archie Barberio
9 170

There are 43 individual bloggers mentioned in one of the tables in this post. These people play a key role in making BTB what it is. On top of the front page articles it's the FanPosts and commenters that keep us coming back day after day. All the bloggers providing insightful and incisive commentary in whatever form they choose makes people like me and many others want to write here, because writing is so much more fun if you're writing for a great audience.

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.

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