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Survey Results And Open Writer Positions

By Tim Dierkes [January 16, 2008 at 10:09am CST]

I recently asked MLBTR readers to tell me how much they liked various site features on a scale of 1 to 10 (1 means they hate it, 10 they love it). The results are in, with over 900 responses. Let's discuss, in order of your enjoyment.

Odds and Ends - Average Score: 8.01. People seem to quite enjoy this feature and didn't have suggestions to improve it. It stays as is.

Needs and Luxuries - Average Score: 7.93. Pretty high rating, but good ideas for improvement. Here's my plan for this feature for '08. I will do the entire series in October '08, a team per day (it's a slow hot stove month). Then we will revisit each team in March of '09, assessing how or if they addressed their needs. As for 2007, I will do the remaining teams over the next few weeks so that every club gets equal attention.

GM Trade Profiles - 7.49. These are cool but take a really long time to do, especially if the GM has been around a while. Just a lot of research before I can even write about the GM. So I will probably continue to do these sporadically.

Mailbag - 7.08. People don't seem to love the mailbag, relatively speaking. Nonetheless maybe it can become a staple if I do it more regularly. I am thinking about doing one every Wednesday.

Rumor Royalty - 6.46. The most common feedback about this feature is that it can be boring, partially because I spread out the three or four questions into separate posts. I will switch it to two posts per sportswriter after we finish the stuff in queue. One post will announce the selection and also allow you to submit your own questions. We'll see how it goes with reader-generated questions - I'll choose the best. Then all the questions and answers for that writer will go into another post. I still like this feature despite the lukewarm response - it's instructive to see what a team expert thinks; these people often don't get to put their valuable opinions in their stories.

One other note - I received about 300 inquiries from people willing to join the MLBTR team. It will take me weeks to comb through, I will go about it carefully. Thanks for the interest!

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I can't believe that Royalty Rumor got such a low rating! People aren't thinking about the long-term appeal of this, getting connected to people who are deemed to be connected to good sources is a good thing.

Sure, there might be boring stuff sometimes, maybe a lot of the time, but it is not like there's going to be a big news all the time, it is not like you will have Deep Throat with every piece of news you get, you need to keep the relationship alive with the boring stuff in order to be there when the good significant info finally does come in.

I'm glad you aren't listening to these people, Tim, and I agree with you also that their opinions are valuable and don't always make it into their writing (opinions and interesting bits of information! I recall an interview with a Giants reporter on-line where he shared opinion and information I didn't see anywhere before, in his writing or other sources)

Also, while I'm at it, am I the only schmoe who has been having problems posting here and on RotoAuthority the past week? It would say that I'm signed in, but then when I try to post, it would say that I need to register and ask for my information. Luckily, if I wait long a while, I eventually can get back in and post, like now...

Posted by: obsessivegiantscompulsive | January 16, 2008 at 10:58 AM

I love the rumor royalty.

Perhaps this is the record skipping here, but I really wish you'd change your format of the white on black. Just a wish...

I can only read the site for about 45 seconds before I get nauseous.

Posted by: IowaCubs | January 16, 2008 at 12:18 PM

I've never had any issues with TypeKey and I'm using Internet Explorer.

Tim - Maybe of those who are having issues with it, you should find out which browser they're using. AOL/IE/Netscape/Firefox/?

Posted by: Droptop | January 16, 2008 at 03:04 PM

I use Opera and haven't had any problems posting messages. The only minor inconvenience is that unless I clean out my cookies after viewing 5-10 pages on this site, the pages don't load anymore unless I clean my cookies. This problem started when the site was having issues earlier in the year and never completely resolved. Just a minor inconvenience. Other than that, Opera is flawless.

Posted by: Sesshomaru | January 16, 2008 at 04:35 PM

“I've never had any issues with TypeKey and I'm using Internet Explorer.
Tim - Maybe of those who are having issues with it, you should find out which browser they're using. AOL/IE/Netscape/Firefox/?”

Using both IE and my BlackBerry ~ have problems on both. Noticed that it comes in spirts though, as if I experience many of the problems because TypeKey is screwing with the system. Also noticed that TypeKey has issues with baseball-Reference ~ if you go back and forth between those pages, it will probably log you out…

Posted by: darkstar1661 | January 16, 2008 at 04:37 PM

I have been using the Yahoo Browser, but, thinking like you all, I tried my IE browser just to be sure and that didn't work either. I basically had to forget about it for a while, then try again. And it worked IN THE SAME BROWSER I had open before, and was trying over and over again, if that isn't ironic.

Posted by: obsessivegiantscompulsive | January 16, 2008 at 07:51 PM

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