A Royals Review User's Guide: Fanposts & Fanshots

by Freneau on Mar 30, 2011 5:00 AM EDT

With the season drawing near, Royals Fever sweeping across the nation, and Royals Review becoming minutely more popular with each passing month, now is a perfect time to offer a refresher on how the site works and how it can work best.

A User's Guide to Royals Review: Commenting - Royals Review

How to Best Use the Fanposts & Fanshots Tools

True story: the reason I joined SB Nation way back when was because of the Fanposts tool/function. I envisioned a day where the site might be popular enough that there would always be smart people participating in the conversation in an in depth way. RR has one of the most active fanshot sections on the Network, and the Fanposts section is solid. The more the site becomes about us and less about some random guy's opinions, the better it gets. If you read the site often, you'll see that we regularly promote Fanposts & Fanshots to the Front Page. Write something good, and people will see it.
A Fanpost should be something substantial. It's a blog post. If you're just posting a link or asking a question or want people to be game threading a World Cup game or something, that should be a Fanshot.
This has already been touched on this week: but please do take 15 seconds to check to see if someone has already posted what you want to post. We don't need the clutter, and we don't need the discussion getting sub-divided.
Write good headlines. This is especially important for Fanposts. Too often, people write Fanposts with titles like "My Question" or something like that. And no one reads them, comments on them, anything. Assuming you want someone to read what you write, try to write a headline that actually explains what you are talking about. I see "My Question" and I keep scanning down. I see "My Question Regarding Lorenzo Cain" and I'm interested.
Do a cursory proofread. Most web browsers now have spellchecker built in, so you really have no excuse. It isn't an English paper, I know, but multiple errors and typos are distracting and just look horrible.

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I found a really, really great video parody of Ozzie Guillen (“He’s a Great Book! with Ozzie Guillen”; check it out on Vimeo). Unfortunately, despite my best efforts, I couldn’t create a coherent fan shot to alert people to it. I knew this was in RR’s wheelhouse, but the link/headline/post got all sorts of messed up and it was overlooked. Will try harder next time…

The greatest moment of my childhood was when [insert name] did [insert insane thing].

by 2motley4thetitle on Mar 30, 2011 8:36 AM EDT reply actions

OH

Does this mean we’re going to have the argument about fanshots/posts again?

by BrRoyal on Mar 30, 2011 9:17 AM EDT reply actions

@It never ended@

The whole problem with the world is that fools & fanatics are always so certain of themselves, and wiser people so full of doubts. ~ Bertrand Russell

by SagehenMacGyver47 on Mar 30, 2011 12:46 PM EDT up reply actions

But I will add

If you don’t have enough words to reach the FanPost limit, that’s a big hint that it probably should be a FanShot. (Unless you really want a Poll, in which case it has to be a FanPost.)

The whole problem with the world is that fools & fanatics are always so certain of themselves, and wiser people so full of doubts. ~ Bertrand Russell

by SagehenMacGyver47 on Mar 30, 2011 12:48 PM EDT up reply actions

what is the argument?

It’s pretty clear to me.

by Freneau on Mar 30, 2011 2:21 PM EDT up reply actions

It's hard to remember how long ago it was, but there were a series of FanPosts that were generally devoid of any real info/insight/analysis

And some (moderately) harsh words were thrown around, maybe even a poll about where one to the Posts/Shots should have gone.

The whole problem with the world is that fools & fanatics are always so certain of themselves, and wiser people so full of doubts. ~ Bertrand Russell

by SagehenMacGyver47 on Mar 30, 2011 4:56 PM EDT up reply actions

I forget who it was, maybe joel's alterego

who kept responding to every comment about fanshots/posts with “I don’t see why there’s a difference and I’m going to post where I want” or some such thing. Considering I don’t recall who it was and I follow here regularly, he probably hasn’t posted/commented in months.

by BrRoyal on Mar 30, 2011 11:25 PM EDT up reply actions

I am really impressed by SB Nation's technology

Very simple to use, clean, sleek. Its the anti-ESPN.com

Relive Royals History at royalsretro.blogspot.com

by RoyalsRetro on Mar 30, 2011 9:37 AM EDT reply actions

couldn't agree more

the commenting and interface is top notch.

for when I'm too lazy to come here, http://twitter.com/AtTheWall

by AtTheWall on Mar 30, 2011 10:51 AM EDT up reply actions

what about pay?

"Shot by my own men."

by StonewallPDS on Mar 30, 2011 9:56 AM EDT reply actions

Trade proposals = good, right?

Glad I came, just wish I hadn't stayed so long.
Rock Chalk Talk

by Warden11 on Mar 30, 2011 10:27 AM EDT reply actions

depends on how good/interesting they are

I mean, more or less ANYTHING is good. This is a sports blog, not the New Yorker. Still, after about the 50th Greinke to the Rangers trade proposal, it got old.

by Freneau on Mar 30, 2011 2:23 PM EDT up reply actions

How about for Belt?

Glad I came, just wish I hadn't stayed so long.
Rock Chalk Talk

by Warden11 on Mar 30, 2011 2:28 PM EDT up reply actions 1 recs

never have too much Belt

for when I'm too lazy to come here, http://twitter.com/AtTheWall

by AtTheWall on Mar 30, 2011 3:07 PM EDT up reply actions 1 recs

Did we ever try a Greinke-for-Belt trade proposal?

must have.

The whole problem with the world is that fools & fanatics are always so certain of themselves, and wiser people so full of doubts. ~ Bertrand Russell

by SagehenMacGyver47 on Mar 30, 2011 4:57 PM EDT up reply actions

And be reminded that you can DELETE your Post/Shot if someone beat you to it

but please do take 15 seconds to check to see if someone has already posted what you want to post.

Sometimes things happen so quickly that you can check before-hand and still there are duplicate posts. Be a man (woman) and copy any info from your post that you think can’t be missed, and post it as a comment in the first Post/Shot, then delete yours.

The whole problem with the world is that fools & fanatics are always so certain of themselves, and wiser people so full of doubts. ~ Bertrand Russell

by SagehenMacGyver47 on Mar 30, 2011 12:51 PM EDT reply actions