The Bent Musket's 2012 Community Interaction Awards!

Recently, the team on high at SB Nation went ahead and compiled a pretty ridiculous amount of data for analysis. They went into each and every blog and community on the network - well over 300, for those of you keeping score - and put together lists of the most active community members on each blog for the entire year of 2012. That means going through every member, and then finding out how many comments, FanShots, and FanPosts each and every member left on each and every blog. Then, they organized in list format by blog, in order of most to least activity.

Building off of that, I've decided to issue some of this information in the form of the 2012 TBM Community Interaction Awards. I'll be revealing each of our winners by category, beginning with....

FanPosts

FanPosts are an area where we've traditionally been lacking in community involvement. Frankly, I think it's because some of you don't know what they are - and I'm going to work on helping you find out - but the long and short of it is that a FanPost is really your opportunity as a member of the community to blog on The Bent Musket. As long as you write at least 150 words (a limit I impose because then, if we front-page it, Google news might pick it up), you can basically talk about almost anything you want. We'd like to keep it relevant to the New England Revolution or at least Northeast/North American Soccer in general, but if you've got burning questions for the community or something to share with your fellow members, the occasional off-topic post is fine, too.

Winner, most FanPosts of 2012: Without further ado, our winner is...ExiledInUSA! Exiled hasn't been around in a while, but most of you probably remember him as our resident dark cloud of the 2012 season. Despite his dreary outlook on life in Revsland, Exiled remained a faithful and diligent reader and commenter, never afraid to express his opinion and make an effort to generate discussion. In terms of FanPosts, there was a period of time where activity slowed early in the year on TBM, and Exiled took it upon himself to pick up the slack, dishing out FanPosts on a broad range of topics that enabled our community to keep the discussion going, finishing the year with a solid 8 FanPosts published. For that, he has earned the award.

Honorable Mention: Revsfan94, 3 published

FanShots

FanShots are another space that we perhaps should help you guys understand so that they get more play. FanShots are similar to FanPosts, except the idea is to share something short and quick with us, like a link to something you like, a photo, a tweet, or a quote. You don't need to explain it thoroughly, and there is no 150-word minimum. Now, when dishing out this award, it's important to recognize that I'm not giving any awards to myself. If I did, I'd win this and the commenting award.

Winner, most FanShots of 2012: TheIndirectKick! I refuse to reward myself for activity, but I won't extend that to my authors. Brendan joined us as a regular contributor this year, and before that he was a burgeoning member of the community as well. Right away, Brendan grasped the utility of the FanShot and used them to great effect, helping break news and generate discussion with links, tweets, quotes, and pictures. In all, Brendan posted 14 FanShots in 2012. Congrats, Brendan!

Honorable Mention: foxborofort, 6 published

Comments

And now, to the comments. While we continually encourage participation through FanPosts and FanShots, comments are really the holy grail. This is where the discussion extends beyond the original article, and our little corner of the blogosphere truly becomes a community. Comments are another area where we'd love to see growth; as you read our words, tell us what you think! Ask questions, give opinions, compliment us, ridicule us, whatever. It doesn't matter. We want to hear from you! Anyway, once again, I will not reward myself (I am far and away the most active commenter on the site, by over 100 comments.)

Winner, most Comments of 2012: cbrown4747! If I had to pick a non-author who was our most consistent presence on The Bent Musket throughout 2012, it would have to be cbrown. No matter what we write about, regardless of dead periods without activity, whenever one of us posts a story we can always count on cbrown chiming in. And while his comment tally of 331 is pretty impressive on its own, even more impressive is the fact that many of those comments are long, multi-paragraph essays in response to what we've written! cbrown is involved, educated, and passionate, and embodies everything we like in a member of this community. Congrats to him on his victory!

Honorable Mention: ExiledinUSA, 318 comments

Closing Remarks

There you have it. The 2012 The Bent Musket Community Interaction Awards are in the books, and the winners are off celebrating with the rest of the Academy (or they've already skimmed to another site...who knows). In conclusion, I'd like to also let you guys know that SBN has come up with an exciting tool known as "Roll Call" that I'll be looking to make use of pretty soon. It allows us to highlight the most prolific commenters in any one post or series of posts, and we'll be doing that pretty extensively in the coming year. Keep your eyes open!