Article: Last Week at Twins Daily: Excitement and Connection

[John Bonnes]

We’re definitely seeing a lot of activity at Twins Daily lately. We had a number of contributing writers draw a lot of attention, a small surge in registrations, lots of new topics in the forums, and a few new blog entries that show the breadth of ways the blog section can be used. Plus, a lot more traffic. Here is your breakdown and news for Twins Daily last week.Stories

Cody Christie and Ted Schwerzler topped our contributing writers, tallying up almost 14,000 views on their stories this week. Steve Lein, Matt Braun, Jeremy Nygaard and Miller1234 also made the top 10 list, along with Tom, Seth, John, and Nick.

 

Seth’s minor league report on Tuesday, featuring another scoreless outing by Fort Myers Miracle Randy Dobnak, was the most read story of the week. Nick’s week in review was the second most read and John’s game recap on Tuesday was the third most read story. Of course, several of Tom Froemming’s stories were well represented.

 

The top story for contributing writers was Cody Christie examining the impact Craig Kimbrel might have on the Twins bullpen. His minor league report was the second most read story. And I should also mention that Jeremy Nygaard returned to writing at Twins Daily and we had RandBall Stu’s usual Friday contribution, which was both funny and increasingly sad as the weekend progressed.

 

Forums

• Registrations – 14 (we had 6 the same week in 2018)
• Topics – 71 (up 48% from same week in 2018)
• Posts - 2493 (down 23% from same week in 2018)

There is some seemingly contradictory data here. We had more people join, and more topics, but less comments. I wonder if that isn’t driven by cutting down on game threads?

 

One of the most gratifying things about Twins Daily for me personally is seeing people connect to each other. It looks like there is a lot of that going on in the forums. If you would like to register and comment, you can do so here (and we would love to meet you).

 

The top ten commenters last week were: Mike Sixel, TheLeviathan, Mr. Brooks, ashbury, h2oface, bighat, nicksaviking, Hosken Bombo Disco, milldaddy35 and spycake. People who started at least two new topics (and who are not writing) are gunnarthor (3), sampleSizeOfOne, stringerbell and ashbury. Thanks you everyone for contributing, and thank you to our moderators for encouraging civil and thoughtful discussion.

 

Blogs

I count four new blog posts this week, and they each show some of the features of starting your own Twins blog on Twins Daily:

• Thieres Rabelo defended Jason Castro’s role on the Twins, and that story was eventually promoted to Twins Daily’s front page. Thieres is a newer writer to Twins Daily, and we’re excited to see what else he can share with us.
• Ted Schwerzler, on the other hand, has been one of Twins Daily’s most prolific writers over the last couple of years. He wrote about Eddie Rosario’s great start. If you click over, you’ll see he included a link to his own Twins blog, which we absolutely encourage. We want people to find you if you’re writing about the Twins. This story has not been promoted to the front page, but a lot of Ted’s are, and they all include links to his site, which is great.
• We have a relatively new writer named ajcondon who has been publishing blog posts that include game recaps, or in this case, a recap of the Houston Astros series. We love it when new writers take the personal risk of sharing their work with the community. He got some feedback in the comments and it was great to see him reply to those comments. I suspect you’ll see his work on the front page, soon.
• Friday, Brandon Warne wrote about addressing the Twins bullpen woes, taking an excerpt from a story he published over at Zone Coverage. Like Ted’s work, if you have an existing blog or web site, and want to do that, that’s fine. The only difference is that we’ll never promote a partial story to our front page because we don’t think it’s fair to make people click over midway through a story. But if it gets more attention to your work, have at it. Again, we want people to find you.

Overall Traffic

• Users – 24,199 (up 34% from 2018)
• Sessions - 60,982 (up 29% from 2018)
• Page Views – 185,193 (up 9% rom 2018)

The easy way to explain the increase in basic metrics across the board is that the Twins are actually good this year, and fun to watch, and so we’re busier. I also like to think we’re a pretty inclusive bunch, so members reach out to connect with more Twins fans, and I think that is something the community feels, too. There is some evidence to support the latter theory in the Forums section above, too.

 

Let’s have another great week at Twins Daily. If there is other news you would like to see, or questions you have about the site, or feedback you want to give, we have this great comment section below. I’d love to hear what you have to say.

 

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[tarheeltwinsfan]

Thank you Twins Daily. You are AWESOME !

[nclahammer]

The FIRST place I go for my Twins news every morning, Twins Daily & my coffee starts every day.

 

[BobAzar]

I have said this many times before in forums here, Twins Daily hasnt made me a bigger Twins fan, but it certainly has made me a smarter Twins fan. Thanks to everyone involved. 

[Oldgoat_MN]

It is a rare day that I only check this site once. Love it.

 

One request... on the right side of the page under The Forums you have the last 5 articles that have had a comment posted. An article can roll off the list pretty fast. Could you put something there that we could click that would bring up the 5 before that?

I know I would use it frequently.

[Doomtints]

It seems like some of the people who commented a lot in the past aren't around, but it also seems like we are a closer group than we were before. We are getting along very well in spite of having different opinions.

 

Enjoy it while it lasts.

[caninatl04]

One hypothesis for the seeming contradiction.  Perhaps, like me, viewers are more willing to "pile on" when the team loses, but, again like me, just wants to shut up when the Twins win a game against a great team by, say 1-0.  Just as a hypothetical... 

[Vanimal46]

Could also be too much content being generated at once... In the past there were articles about a certain topic that percolated over a couple of weeks and generated several pages of comments. Now it's tough to keep up with all of the new content published on the site...

 

I used to post a ton on game threads before, and fully accept the current state of that part of the site. A lot of the people who made game threads fun in the past are no longer around, and it's probably not possible to recreate that atmosphere anymore.

[Richie the Rally Goat]

 

Could also be too much content being generated at once... In the past there were articles about a certain topic that percolated over a couple of weeks and generated several pages of comments. Now it's tough to keep up with all of the new content published on the site...

I used to post a ton on game threads before, and fully accept the current state of that part of the site. A lot of the people who made game threads fun in the past are no longer around, and it's probably not possible to recreate that atmosphere anymore.

I can't speak for others, but personally, my bandwidth to participate in the game threads has reduced lately, especially with the earlier start to the home games.

 

Young kids means I'm making dinner, bath and bed during the first 4-5 innings. and usually check in once or twice, but it's hard to catch up to a GT already in progress.

[John Bonnes]

 

It is a rare day that I only check this site once. Love it.

 

One request... on the right side of the page under The Forums you have the last 5 articles that have had a comment posted. An article can roll off the list pretty fast. Could you put something there that we could click that would bring up the 5 before that?

I know I would use it frequently.

 

Thank you for this suggestion. We are looking at a possible redesign of some things and making the community aspects of this more "up-front" would be a priority. You're absolutely right about this. 

[John Bonnes]

 

One hypothesis for the seeming contradiction.  Perhaps, like me, viewers are more willing to "pile on" when the team loses, but, again like me, just wants to shut up when the Twins win a game against a great team by, say 1-0.  Just as a hypothetical... 

 

I thought about that too. Maybe there is a difference between the moods when a team is good or bad and maybe "good" means more topics, but fewer comments because people are more content?

[John Bonnes]

 

I can't speak for others, but personally, my bandwidth to participate in the game threads has reduced lately, especially with the earlier start to the home games.

 

Young kids means I'm making dinner, bath and bed during the first 4-5 innings. and usually check in once or twice, but it's hard to catch up to a GT already in progress.

 

Re: Game threads

 

It sounds like these are coming back in a more limited form, so stay tuned. 

 

I'm happy to have them, but last year the overwhelming negativity kind of killed them. Which is not to say you can't be negative in a game thread; that's a valid reaction. But the people who take time to create and caretake the game threads can lose their motivation when doing so creates a cesspool of negativity. It's kind of hard work. 

[nater79a]

 

One hypothesis for the seeming contradiction.  Perhaps, like me, viewers are more willing to "pile on" when the team loses, but, again like me, just wants to shut up when the Twins win a game against a great team by, say 1-0.  Just as a hypothetical... 

 

Was thinking the same here.  Remember, this time last season the Twins were in the midst of losing 11 of 12 games.   Also, Buxton fouled that ball off his toe in rehab so that added some drama.  

 

Agree that the posters come out a bit more when negative things are happening than when things are going well.   

[Riverbrian]

 

Re: Game threads

 

It sounds like these are coming back in a more limited form, so stay tuned. 

 

I'm happy to have them, but last year the overwhelming negativity kind of killed them. Which is not to say you can't be negative in a game thread; that's a valid reaction. But the people who take time to create and caretake the game threads can lose their motivation when doing so creates a cesspool of negativity. It's kind of hard work. 

 

That's a pretty apt description of what happened with me last year. I'm not opposed to coming back but I can't return to what the game threads became. I just can't... It isn't me. I'm too happy a guy to sift through page after page of "this sucks". In the end... it changed me... it changed my mood, my happiness and I had to put it down so I could stay me. I was going to bed angry and I am rarely angry and don't like being angry... ever. The whole thing became a load of bricks to carry that I had no choice but to set down immediately.

 

I was simply over-run, the usual band of characters who could find the humor in bad baseball had either departed entirely over the years or slowed their contributions to the point where there were nights that I felt like Kevin Bacon in Animal House, trampled by the riot. I could not moderate it, I could not change it, it could not be stopped without the band getting back together to push the tide back. It reached the point where the most prolific posters were now negatively inclined. 

 

Nobody was doing anything wrong according to the rules... most of the negative reactions were actually understandable in consideration to what was happening on the field but the collective tone had changed drastically. 

 

There's a cycle to everything and what the game threads became was just the bad side of a cycle I assume. Kind of like the Carpenters, John Denver, and Anne Murray had to come around after Led Zeppelin and the Beatles.  

 

I don't know if the owners and mods of this site totally understood my decision but I do know that they gave me respect enough to give me the space I needed and for that I am grateful. 

 

It was hard work, leg irons attached type hard work, not just by me, but Carole who set time aside in her busy schedule each day to edit my nonsense when she didn't have to, Chief was working over time to keep the trains running on time with the scheduling. There was a team working together and I bailed on the team but I really had no choice. It was bail or let the people around me suffer my self inflicted mood change. It was like a dog you loved that all of sudden started biting you. Eventually, you got to get rid of the dog. 

 

Speaking for myself, there was an enjoyment in the work that justified it but, the key word is "Was". There was simply no longer justification for the effort while you are sifting through page after page of "this sucks". 

 

I haven't been back and I have no idea what the current state of the game threads are. I'd love to put down the depth/flexibility kick I've been on and go back to having serious, important, critical discussions on "How a Giraffe would make a great pet, if you had the right kind of house". But I can't go back to what it was last year. I just can't. In other words... I can't jump back in with both feet, it would have to be a toe dip and I would require the assistance of anyone who would like to see the game threads back to what they were before to turn the tide back. If it can be turned back? 

 

Anyway, I treasure this website. There is simply no website on earth that suits me, like this one.