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Roll Call: Most Active BTB Community Members In 2016

The Cowboys take a small breather before heading into the divisional playoff round, and we do the same thing as we look at the top contributors to BTB over the last twelve months.

Stephen Dunn/Getty Images

At the beginning of every year here on Blogging The Boys, dating all the way back to 2012, we like to look back at some of our key user stats from the previous year. We do this not to revel in our record page views or the number of new members we attract every month. Instead, this is an effort to recognize those community members who have made significant contributions to making BTB what it is today: the best source of Cowboys coverage you can find anywhere.

BTB is more than just the sum of the front page writers, much more. While many of us may have stumbled on BTB via an article on the front page, we kept coming back and eventually signed up because of the quality of our community here. Different people contribute in different ways to the community. Many add comments, often on an almost daily basis, some of you even write lengthy FanPosts. And each day, each of us adds a little more to the community. So this is where we say thank YOU, you the reader, you the commenter, you the contributor.

Which is why today we break down some BTB stats from 2016 to honor the most prolific BTB members, both in terms of quantity and quality, and recognize them for their contributions. But before we do that, and to borrow the title of a popular post by one of the best writers we've ever had, here is BTB By The Numbers for 2016:

  • 2,540 total front page posts. 15 different front page writers worked tirelessly over the year to bring you quality Cowboys coverage. For a football blog that covers only sixteen regular season games, knocking out an average of more than seven articles per day, 365 days per year, is an awesome job. And just like Sum 41, I like to think that effort was "All Killer, No Filler" - most of the time anyway. At the very least, I think we've kept you well entertained.
  • 730 FanPosts. 258 BTB members wrote a combined 730 Fanposts, up from 638 last year.
  • Half a million comments. If you’ve read every single comment on the front page, the FanPosts, or the Fanshots, you’ve been very busy. The sum of those comments has contributed to keeping this a vibrant and interesting community.
Most Prolific Commenters

Half a million comments over a year averages out to about 1,400 comments per day. Here are the 60 most prolific commenters of 2016:

2016 Most Comments
BTB-member
Comments BTB-member
Comments BTB-member
Comments
Jeber 13,596 bking 3,395 Canadian Texan 2,404
BWaj22 11,012 Jessy S 3,301 ReturntoDoomsday 2,383
Robsa 8,141 dunkman 3,240 Donrogeraikman 2,226
FuzzyLogic1 7,864 just-the-facts 3,233 et tu, brute 2,177
Ride Together, Die Together 7,387 Jace M 3,208 Jim Scott 2,108
Rena 6,987 Aggie Man 3,077 Sean N 2,077
Terry 6,812 LizardState 3,032 Ispeakredneck 1,986
Truebluedcfan 5,989 goose916 2,984 Gary Morris 1,979
CowboyOcelot 5,747 Shaymer 2,951 Markythearky 1,939
RoSHa 5,281 pjohn56 2,938 Jonathan Stern 1,882
Musiccitynorm 5,153 clearwall 2,925 zigg6411 1,841
rocketcoe 5,109 bcomets 2,873 MikeySB 1,772
DalaiLuke 4,982 nepacowboy 2,797 ScottB1985 1,767
scraig2015 4,643 CoreyAdkison88 2,769 Baked Potato Soup 1,744
willin' 4,342 Ὀδυσσεύς 2,689 Eddie 817 1,703
Merc WithA Mouth 3,937 APerfectStar 2,679 RKO 1,657
Gregory_Regularly 3,925 bleeding_blue&silve 2,654 StillHateTheGiants 1,652
Densa 3,859 Wreck'emCowboys 2,650 RCal 1,637
Julius Russell 3,662 pfloyd1 2,451 5Blings 1,627
Old Frog 3,569 Fernie67 2,408 Uriahchase 1,604

In addition to quantity, we can also look at the quality of these comments. Like many other social media sites, BTB also has a way of "liking" posts or comments. In our little corner of the universe, the likes are called "recs", short for "recommendations", and BTB members can rec comments they particularly like. Four recs and your comment turns blue on BTB.

Here are the 30 members who received the most recommendations for their comments last year:

2016 Most Recs per Comment
BTB-member
Recs Cmnts
Recs/Cmnts BTB-member
Recs Cmnts
Recs/Cmnts
Joey Ickes 782 133 5.9 doomsdaydominators94 4,075 1134 3.6
One.Cool.Customer 5,033 874 5.8 Crunchberry 893 254 3.5
C.A.Shelton 1,391 259 5.4 Blue Eyed Devil 547 156 3.5
#ThrowUpTheX 1,859 352 5.3 icebowl68 2,179 642 3.4
Jericho Slim 1,505 303 5.0 Jfinch027 476 144 3.3
TARHEEL PAUL 549 111 4.9 Jason M Barnes 413 126 3.3
Kegbearer 4,551 969 4.7 CoachGordonBombay 2,154 673 3.2
Yellowbeard 5,011 1093 4.6 Aggie Man 9,846 3077 3.2
thegloryyears 741 163 4.5 Andrew Flynn 882 279 3.2
thepainster 490 115 4.3 DannyPhantom 631 200 3.2
RobbStark 888 209 4.2 S.Fisher 363 117 3.1
SDTrueblue 933 231 4.0 DEL1SLE 640 207 3.1
ScarletO 452 119 3.8 Cowboy In The Sand 706 229 3.1
Dub_TC 840 222 3.8 WichapiOyate! 2,088 682 3.1
rabblerousr 1,230 339 3.6 Lord Humungus 2,674 894 3.0

What I really like about the table above is that six of the 30 names in the table are current or former front-page writers. Five of those names should be readily identifiable by most regular readers, the sixth name may only be know to veteran readers who've been around since at least 2009. Compounding matters is that the member in question used to go by the name "GloryDayz88." If you're a BTB veteran and know who it is, don't go blurting it out in the comments section right away, give the newbies a knowing wink and let them figure it out themselves ;-)

Even more intriguing, at least to me, is to wonder whether the table also contains the name of the next front-page writer to emerge from the ranks of the BTB members - which is what all six current and former writers in this table did.

Overall, I feel this table speaks to the fact that our writers remain engaged in the community, even after they stop being featured on the front page, and that BTB is more than just a way station for most of us. But it also speaks to the fact that we have many more BTB members outside of the frontpage writers whose opinions are valued and appreciated by their fellow members.

FanPosts

The table below lists the 15 top contributors in the FanPost section. The tables are sorted by number of FanPosts in 2016, by the number of recommendations (recs), and by the number of comments generated by the FanPost and the ensuing discussion.

2016 No. Of Fanposts 2016 Recommendations Received 2016 Comments generated
Author Fanposts Author FanPosts Recs Author FanPosts Cmnts
D.White 29 neithan20000 19 335 D.White 29 991
kilmoturtles 27 MrMannequin 12 130 revellyre 22 771
Peyson88 25 ScarletO 16 125 neithan20000 19 584
Donny84 23 SeekingNumberSix 22 114 SeekingNumberSix 22 555
revellyre 22 D.White 29 92 redsoxu571 16 462
SeekingNumberSix 22 redsoxu571 16 64 VAfan 16 446
neithan20000 19 NYHorn 3 60 BWaj22 8 341
ScarletO 16 Rena 4 59 Old Frog 16 335
redsoxu571 16 VAfan 16 59 MrMannequin 12 333
VAfan 16 Fumbles 1 57 Peyson88 25 325
Old Frog 16 revellyre 22 52 CowboyOcelot 7 312
The Trenches 14 Landry's Fedora 3 51 kilmoturtles 27 303
DubBe 13 CowboyOcelot 7 48 NYHorn 3 297
carsonhudspeth 13 ReturntoDoomsday 6 45 ScarletO 16 279
MrMannequin 12 BWaj22 8 43 Ride Together, Die Together 2 232

FanPosts are a key part of BTB, as they'll give you a much broader range of opinions than you'll get on the front page. But writing a FanPost - and a well-received one at that - is a lot of work, so if you see one you like, give it a rec. And don't be stingy with those recs.

The tables above feature some of the most prolific contributors to the blog last year, but they are not the only voices on BTB, not by a long shot. In total, 2,798 members left at least one comment on the blog last year. If you missed out on the lists above but still want to know where you rank in the grand scheme of BTB things, here's an Excel file with the data for all commenters in 2016:

BTB Roll Call 2016

And if your name's not on any of the lists above, but you want to see your name up in the bright BTB lights at the end of the year, then simply post more stuff, more often!

Until then, thank you all for your great contributions.

Front Page

And finally, we close with the front page writers and podcasters.

As a team of writers on BTB, we take great pride in what we do here day in and day out to bring you the best Cowboys coverage you can find. Here are our numbers for 2016, how they compare to the previous two years:

2014 Front Page Writers 2015 Front Page Writers 2016 Front Page Writers
Writer Posts
Writer Posts
Writer Posts
OCC 664 OCC 539 Dave Halprin 498
Dave Halprin 583 Dave Halprin 430 OCC 467
Tom Ryle 358 Tom Ryle 346 Tom Ryle 332
Dawn Macelli 204 rabblerousr 330 Michael Sisemore 275
rabblerousr 203 Michael Sisemore 221 Danny Phantom 241
Joey Ickes 86 Dawn Macelli 185 Ryan Ratty 144
KD Drummond 83 Danny Phantom 112 Dawn Macelli 126
neithan20000 71 Jim Scott 37 Jim Scott 123
Gary Morris 37 Billy McCool 32 Vafan 96
Kegbearer 32 neithan20000 31 Joseph.Hatz 81
Billy McCool 22 Gary Morris 28 Joey Ickes & Billy McCool 67
JSM8ith 17 DraftCowboys 18 Joey Ickes 58
- - JSM8ith 16 duckman4real 25
- - - - rabblerousr 9
- - - - Manik Aggarwal 7

Dave Halprin started BTB all by his lonesome in 2005 and moved the blog to SB Nation later that year. Our roster of writers has significantly expanded since, and we now have more BTB writer alumni than we have writers on staff. Some of our alumni still frequent BTB, others have found greener pastures somewhere else; all helped build BTB into what it is today, so a here’s a so here's a Texas-sized hat tip to the BTB Veterans Association. Thanks, guys.

Here's Dave from that post in 2005 explaining what BTB is all about, and what it remains to this day.

For the new reader, you've arrived at a community of loyal, knowledgeable, partially insane Dallas Cowboys fans. We talk about the premiere franchise in all of sports 365 days a year. We invite you to stick around and add to the community. You can make your voice heard or you can just lurk and read all the great Cowboys information on the blog.

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