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

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.

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:

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.