A little while a go, I stuffed a few new pages to the left sidebar of the site to provide quick reference to some hot stove-related information such as contract status and players out of options for the upcoming season. We've continued adding to the nascent and pretentiously-named "RR Reference Desk" section since then.

You can now find a link to a growing spreadsheet, pioneered by kcgard, which provides a report on injured players in the Reds' system. This document is intended to stay current, serving as a clearinghouse for information on injuries sustained and expected returns. Users will be able both to get a up-to-date snapshot of current injuries/prognoses and view injury history (limited to late 2011 to start). We're currently only tackling players on 40-man roster, plus roughly the Top 15 prospects. But future versions might see us expanding our patient population, and maybe also: logging injuries further back in time before 2011, closely tracking rehab updates and incorporating technology my tiny non-singularity brain can't possibly imagine right now.

Also at the Reference Desk, we've got our 2012 payroll projection. It's based on the fine work of Riverfront76, adjustments to Cot's 2011 baseline, some MLBTradeRumors arb estimates and my own private spreadsheet stash. At the most basic level, it should give a rough indication of how much payroll space the Reds have to work with this offseason. It's also wide open to debate and I'd love to have any feedback on where estimates might have missed the mark. Like the injury report, it's meant to be a living document. We'll keep current as contracts get inked over the offseason so it can serve as a quick guide to what every Red with a major league contract is making next season, even if the estimates seem screwy.

Thanks in advance for not disposing of chewing gum inside a book like I once saw some jerk do. Please stick it under a table or behind the Twitter feed.

For those of you without a presence on Twitter, I'll spare you the evangelizing. I've gone from thinking the micro-blogging phenomenon was "dumb," to "a necessary evil," to "a form of informational methodone" all in the very recent past. Like any other social media device, Twitter has a dangerously low signal-to-noise ratio. I want to keep this site's contributions as relevant, thoughtful and entertaining as possible for a medium that traffics in weird abbreviations and quasi robot-speak. So if you want to find out if we're capable (and are not already) consider following: http://www.twitter.com/redreporter

Red Reporter Manager Emeritus Slyde handed the keys to the account to the current stable of contributors just recently. Since then, our followers have thrilled to such tweets as:

beavis once asserted that "fields suck." i have to respectfully disagree, http://bit.ly/eZQ7Kc

and:

"Ned Ryerson, I dated your sister Mary Pat a couple of times until you told me not to anymore? Well?"

As far as tweeting goes, I'm still in my Spring Training phase.

Of course, Twitter will be continue to be a way to find up-to-the-second site updates and new/newly-recycled content from Red Reporter. But I'd also like to make sure it remains something beyond just a status update for the site's front page. To that end, I have a few ideas for new kinds of content:

• Straw polls: SBNation has a great polling tool, but it's nice also to do more conversational opinion polling, where answers are not shunted into on a prescribed list, yet still forced to be concise (140 chars to be exact).
• Reds trivia: Hoping to get a good base of questions (and answers) and to encourage challenging the Red Reporter brass in turn. Certainly, trivia doesn't have the same prestige in the Google Era, but it's all in good fun and I wager there are plenty of questions that defy a simple search engine query.
• Red Reporter quotables: There are a lot of insight and witticisms that, while enjoyed by thread participants, are often buried here and lost to time. Twitter is potential forum for sharing those moments of clarity, with proper attribution and a link to the site.
• Red Reporter classics: A lot of what we do here is admittedly time-sensitive. But if SNL can air old episodes with Weekend Update intact, we can syndicate our archive. There's great, often still-relevant content from the backlogs that could find its way to Twitter.
  

I'd  like to solicit your suggestions. Is there anything you'd like to have pop up in your feed that would make it even more worth the time to read that whole entire sentence? Any ideas on how to improve this pipeline or information and make it (ugh) a "value-added product" for you as a Red Reporter reader would be greatly appreciated.

Since SB Nation announced the Yahoo partnership, we've seen some serious growth in our traffic a Red Reporter.  We've hit all time highs for unique visits in each of the last two months, and we're on pace to do it again this month.  And while not all of you who are new to the site are signing up for accounts, those of you who have chosen to step into the fray have been excellent additions to the site.  So, welcome to all of you, whether you are new or old, lurking or active.  The other writers and I appreciate that you find this site worth visiting on a regular basis!

That being said, I do want to remind all of you of the purpose of FanPosts versus FanShots.  FanPosts are intended to be an area where you can express longer, more involved ideas.  Consider it a blog within a blog, where you can bring up a topic that isn't being discussed on the site already.  There is a minimum word limit on the FanPost for a reason though.  If you have something you want to talk about, but don't want to put a lot of thought into it (eg. you just want to ask a question of the group or drop a link that you found), it's likely that your post would fit better in a FanShot or simply as a comment in an existing thread.  As a rule of thumb, if you are intentionally babbling in your post in order to fill the space requirement, consider putting your thought somewhere other than a FanPost.

FanShots are there for when you simply want to post a link to something cool you found on the net, or perhaps post a picture, video, or quote that you want everyone to know about.  The beauty of the FanShot is that you don't have to put any thought into it.  And there are no minimum word requirements.  It's like the best of all worlds!

I know most people may not make it down to the FanShots area as much as they'd like.  So, in order to encourage readers to look at the FanShots, we're going to put a section within our regular Red Reposter feature where we update you on the latest FanShots that have been added.  That way, if the scroll feature is broken on your web browser, you won't be left out of all of the fun that the rest of us are having in the FanShots.

So please, continue to use both FanPosts and FanShots to add your voice to the site.  I love it when we get a well written FanPost from one of you that really makes me think.  It's what makes this place more of a community than just a plain old blog.  And please don't hesitate to drop your favorite links or videos or images in the FanShot area.  It makes it easier for the rest of us to find it too!

Last week we looked at how to fully utilize the tools given to us by the SBN devleopers while reading a story and comments on Red Reporter.  Today we're going to talk about something that is much more unique to the SBN community compared to your typical blog - FanPosts and FanShots.

As you know, these two sections are what make Red Reporter a community driven site rather than just a typical blog.  FanPosts are where you, the average joe living in his mom's basement, can post 1500 words on why Alex Gonzalez is teh awesome!  And FanShots give you a spot to post that super neat-o picture, link, or video that you can't seem to fit in the comment section anywhere.  Now it's time for you to learn how to use them.

(Special thanks to TheCheat at South Side Sox, from whom I pretty much stole this entire article)

Continue reading this post »

I've noticed a lot of questions over the last couple of days about what this means or how to do that, so I figured I'd compile them all into a few posts for reference later on in life.

Today we'll start with the basics, reading the site and commenting.

When you come to Red Reporter you will see a 3 column set up, with links to various items on the left and and right sides and the primary site content down the middle.  That middle area is where the magic happens.  That is where you'll find our daily updates as well Game Threads, Reviews, and other fun stuff like this article.  Okay, it probably doesn't need to be this dumbed down, does it?

One thing you may find in an article on the front page is a link that says "Continue reading this post »" at the end.  Be sure to click that to get to the remainder of the article.  If you miss it, you may miss the key to life.

If the link is not there, just click the "Comments" link to start reading the comments.  In this article's case, click the "Continue reading this post »" link.

Continue reading this post »