SB Nation User Blog: clockwerks

The FanPost Editor Gets Twitter, Better

clockwerks — Mon, 01 Jun 2009 11:40:43 -0000

This morning we released some new features, all of them designed to help you share what you have to say about your favorite sport and team. Here is the rundown:

Share on Twitter

When you publish a FanPost or FanShot let your friends (or followers as they're called) know via Twitter. We've built an easy tool into the FanPost and FanShot editors that automatically creates a short URL back to your post and lets you send that to your Twitter stream along with a quick message. You can set this all up from your account settings screen, or right within the FanPost and FanShot editors. See more detailed instructions below.

Redesigned FanPost Editor

We've made a few changes to the layout and features of the FanPost editor:

1) Bigger textarea - more space to explain why ranking systems can't be objective or your GM should be fired immediately

2) Spellchecker - this isn't a spelling bee, it's a sports blog network

3) Draggable jump bar - we combined the intro and extended entry sections of a post and made it easy to decide where to split them

4) Sidebar inserts palette - tools to insert images, videos and quick, relevant, timely links in your post

5) Easy status + save - we made the auto-save message more obvious, combined it with the post status and made the whole thing a big button you can click to save as often as you want (without reloading the whole page)

6) Autotagger - adding player, team and game tags to your post helps everyone find your opinion on those subjects; we just made it super easy: write your post, click that 'run autotagger' button and we'll tag your post the most relevant players and teams + link them up as well. if you don't feel like clicking that button, we'll run that process for you when you publish.

A help box that explains all of this in more detail will open up the first time you try out the new FanPost editor. Now go fire it up on your favorite blog and try it out!

Twitter Instructions

1) LINK YOUR TWITTER ACCOUNT: Login to SB Nation, click your screen name in the network bar up at the top of the page, then click 'Edit Account'. From there click the 'Associate a Twitter stream with your account' link and follow the instructions to hook it up.

2) SHARE FANPOSTS + FANSHOTS ON TWITTER: Now when you click 'New FanPost' or 'New FanShot', you'll notice a checkbox at the bottom of the screen that you can click to reveal a text area to write your tweet. We take care of generating the short URL. All you have to do is click the 'Publish' button. BTW, if you skipped step 1 you can link your Twitter account directly from the FanPost and FanShot editors. And we make sure you won't lose your work in the process.

Rails Developer at SB Nation

clockwerks — Fri, 03 Oct 2008 19:38:29 -0000

SB Nation, the largest and fastest growing network of online sports communities, is seeking an outstanding developer.

You’ll join our small product team and participate in every phase of the development cycle, from feature design, prototyping, and technical architecture to development, deployment, and maintenance. Primarily, you’ll be coding a Ruby on Rails application backed by a MySQL database and running on Linux servers.

You’re a friendly, creative, and pragmatic problem-solver who’s passionate about developing elegant solutions and awesome user experiences. You also:

Have extensive experience building high-traffic web applications, writing complex and efficient SQL queries, profiling and optimizing code, and devising and implementing caching strategies
Love writing unit tests and using source control & bug tracking systems
Know your way around *nix operating systems
Communicate well
Have a solid grounding in object-oriented programming and fundamental computer science concepts such as concurrency, complexity theory, and algorithms & data structures

Ideally, you also have:

Built and deployed into production a non-trivial Rails application
Worked on small development teams and with remote team members
Experience building Ajax/DHTML interfaces using the Prototype framework
Experience using a variety of programming languages and frameworks

Other bonuses:

Experience managing MySQL servers (maintenance, replication, tuning, etc.)
Experience managing web or application servers (configuring and tuning any of these: Apache, Mongrel, Nginx, Lighttpd)
Experience in sports media, passionate fan of sports or actively play sports yourself

About us: SportsBlogs Nation is a network of individual blog communities run by fans, for fans and united by a common devotion to their favorite team or sports. We provide the highest quality content, conversations, and applications to an audience of over 2.3 million (and growing) passionate fans around the world. After successfully growing organically for the last 3 years, we are a well-funded company with an established revenue model and business expertise to go with our technology product & blogging editorial foundation.

This is a permanent position with full benefits based anywhere. Our offices are located in DC. Remote candidates must be able to travel to DC from time to time for meetings, product design session, etc. Salary commensurate with experience.

To apply, send a resume to jobs@sbnation.com.

via media.nbcwashington.com woah.

clockwerks — Wed, 17 Dec 2008 19:02:43 -0000

via media.nbcwashington.com

woah.

Cool history of Astros uniforms from the Baseball HOF. I have to say I've never liked the...

clockwerks — Sat, 13 Dec 2008 03:25:03 -0000

Cool history of Astros uniforms from the Baseball HOF. I have to say I've never liked the pinstripes we got in 2000. Always thought it was a lame attempt by Drayton to make us something we were not. I get the whole retro idea that came w/ moving into the juice box, but couldn't they have thrown back to our roots instead of some east coast team? How about a sweet Colt .45 pistol style uniform?

Gather 'Round the Hot Stove

clockwerks — Thu, 04 Dec 2008 17:16:06 -0000

It's that time of year that every bored baseball fan loves as they wait for spring training. The infamous Winter Meetings are coming and the rumor mill has fired up full speed. Big moves (and even the small ones) can shake up your favorite team and change the upcoming baseball season. Follow along on the SB Nation baseball blogs to get the latest news and analysis during the hot stove season. And then jump in and tell us what you think. We have launched a site that makes it easy to find everything you need to know in one place:

Race to the BCS: Rankings, Scores and Blog Posts

clockwerks — Sat, 15 Nov 2008 19:09:06 -0000

The season is almost over, but the BCS race has just heated up with multiple teams jockeying for positions to make the big bowl games and ultimately to play for the national championship. Yesterday we launched a hub that brings together NCAA football scores, the BCS rankings and all the posts from our college league blogs who cover the games. It's a great one-stop shop to hear the details and opinions from the fans of all those teams. Check it out and let us know what you think. BTW, you'll also find BCS related stories in the sidebar of your favorite college blog.

"When I talk to Roy, we understand the importance of pitching," Peavy said, according to the...

clockwerks — Mon, 27 Oct 2008 00:28:25 -0000

"When I talk to Roy, we understand the importance of pitching," Peavy said, according to the newspaper. "I think he wants some established pitching help. Not saying they don't have established pitching, but obviously he's lobbying me [saying], 'Hey, man, would you waive your no-trade to play in Houston?' and 'certainly,' I tell him."

Peavy recently joined Houston ace Roy Oswalt on a Michigan hunting trip, and according to the Houston Chronicle, Peavy said he would happily waive his no-trade clause to join the Astros.

ESPN - Peavy has five teams in mind; Padres expanding potential - MLB

Welcome to SB Nation and the new CelticsBlog

clockwerks — Fri, 24 Oct 2008 13:29:28 -0000

Hey everyone, welcome to the new and improved CelticsBlog! I will turn things over to the SB Nation tech team now, so they can guide you through logging in and any questions or concerns you may have. Please read the directions below and show them every courtesy. Take a look around, get set up, and enjoy the new CelticsBlog.

Thanks - Jeff Clark

---------------------------------

Hey CelticsBlog,

Today is the big day. We've switched your community over to the SB Nation sports blog platform. My name is Trei (clockwerks), and I'm here to help you get adjusted to the new home we've built for you. If you have questions or trouble with the new system, post a comment in this thread and myself or one of the team (lovitt, sixfoot6 or odacrem) will try to point you in the right direction. Or you can contact us directly through email at support@sbnation.com.

GETTING STARTED

We’ve worked hard to make sure that members of both CelticsBlog and Green Bandwagon can make an easy transition to the new combined CelticsBlog. In both cases you will be able to to keep all your blog comments and posts. There are a few easy steps that are the same for members of both communities – it just depends on where you do or don’t already have accounts registered.

Pick your situation and follow the instructions to get started:

IF YOU DON’T HAVE AN SB NATION ACCOUNT

Login here with your CelticsBlog username and password
The system will check to see if your username is still available on SB Nation. Unfortunately, not all usernames will be available. Choose a new one if necessary. This WILL NOT impact your forums username.
Complete your SB Nation account registration

IF YOU HAVE BOTH AN SB NATION ACCOUNT AND A CELTICSBLOG ACCOUNT

Login here with your SB Nation username and password
Claim your CelticsBlog account:

a) Click your screenname in the network bar at the top of the page
b) Click ‘Edit Account’
c) Select ‘Claim old blog account’
d) Find CelticsBlog in the list of blogs
e) Enter your CelticsBlog username and password, then click ‘add’
f) Click 'Update'

IF YOU ONLY HAVE AN SB NATION ACCOUNT

If you were already a member of Green Bandwagon, you should be all set. Just login to SB Nation. We’ve already made you a member of CelticsBlog and we migrated your comments, FanPosts and FanShots.

If you weren’t a member of Green Bandwagon, but want to participate on CelticsBlog, just login and click the big ‘Join’ button in the left sidebar.

WHAT IS DIFFERENT

Forums

Before, as a member of CelticsBlog, you could login to the blog and automatically participate in the Forums. That is no longer the case. Your forums account is now separate from your blog account. You must login to each separately. Your old forums account hasn’t changed and if you are required to choose a new screenname with your SB Account it won’t have any impact on your forums username or profile. They are completely separate.

Besides some cosmetic changes, the forums themselves have not changed. All of your old posts, your profiles, your Tommy points, etc are still there. Just login with your same old username and passowrd.

Chat

It’s not up in the top navigation bar anymore, but is still active and now found in the left sidebar.

WHAT IS NEW

Network Account and Profile

Once you’ve created your SB Nation account or if you already had one and have added your CelticsBlog membership, you now have a single passport across an entire nation of sport blogs. It’s a two-click process to join other blogs and start participating. And your activity is brought together in one fan profile. If you publish FanPosts across these communities, we pull all of those together into your own blog. To view your profile click your screenname anywhere you see it including up in the network bar when you’re logged in.

Other SB Nation communities that might be interesting to CelticsBlog members include Pats Pulpit (Patriots), Over the Monster (Red Sox), Third Quarter Collapse (Magic), Bullets Forever (Wizards) or Posting and Toasting (Knicks). Check out the full list of 150+ SB Nation blogs.

Schedule, Scores, Stats and Roster

CelticsBlog now has all the basic information about the Celtics and hundreds of other teams. During games you'll see a regularly updated line score, and as the season progresses we'll track team stat totals and leaders. This is just our first step, so look for us to publish more detailed and archival stats in the future. The best part about all this sports data is that we've integrated it directly into the blog. We now have special pages that aggregate all blog posts written about games, players and teams.

Auto-refreshing Comments

You no longer need to refresh the page to see new comments. If you're logged in, new comments will automatically appear on the page every few seconds. When you post a comment, the page will not refresh either. If you want to quickly cycle through all the new comments, you can press the C key on your keyboard. Unmark a new comment after you've read it with the X key. And use the Z key if you want to umark comments as you're cycling through them.

As you use these shortcuts to cycle through comments, press the R key to reply to the current comment. All these helpful keyboard shortcuts are listed at the top of each comments section for reference.

FanPosts

Publish your sports news and opinion at the next level with our blogging tools. FanPosts are where members of SB Nation communities write longer pieces on their favorite teams and sports. Everyone can recommend the best and most interesting FanPosts. And when blog managers see something exceptional, they can promote FanPosts to the frontpage. Also, it’s easy to attach related players, teams and games so that FanPosts can be promoted on those pages within CelticsBlogs and across all of SB Nation network. Here are a few links to check out:

Full guide to writing FanPosts
FanPost editor (available when logged in)
Page to view all of your draft and published FanPosts (available when logged in)

The most recently published and recommended FanPosts are in the sidebar, but you can also click the FanPosts option in the top navigation bar to find a list view similar to forums. Members of CelticsBlog can respond to your FanPosts using the same fast-paced, threaded comment system on frontpage blog posts.

FanShots

We’ve made it easy to post links, quotes, photos and videos that you find as you browse the web for Celtics news. FanShots are the quick hits you want to share with the community and get a conversation started. The most recently published and recommended FanShots are displayed in the sidebar on the homepage so you don’t have to dig too deep for the latest finds. There are two ways to publish FanShots:

FanShot bookmarklet – This one is designed to help you send stuff you find back to the community without having to return to the blog. You put a bookmarklet in your browser and when you find a video on YouTube, a story you like or a photo on Flickr, just click the bookmarklet. It’s pretty cool. To get setup: login, go to the FanShots list page and follow the instructions you find at the top about adding the bookmarklet to your browser
The FanShot editor – This is the easy tool built right into the blog – just click ‘New FanShot’ and choose the tab for the type of FanShot you’re making

Obama's fantasy football team

clockwerks — Thu, 23 Oct 2008 12:22:47 -0000

Obama's fantasy football team

First, Colin Powell. Now fantasy football. Talk about piling on!

Hockey journalist James Mirtle joins SB Nation to blog From the Rink

clockwerks — Tue, 21 Oct 2008 19:42:56 -0000