Dr. Tom

Not surprising. The man has always been good as an offensive coordinator, but always shitty as a head coach. I was very surprised the Raiders even hired him in the first place.

How many games has he won recently, though? If you want to discount this year because of all the external factors, fine, but how successful have the Saints been under him? I'm sure he wanted out as much as they wanted to make a change, and I think it's a good idea for both parties.

Maybe the Bills can find a competent GM, and a coach with a spine.

All is right with the world again.

Eh, I think thesmartmarks.com is too limiting. It's intrinsically linked to rasslin', and we're trying to be more than that. TSM.com would work better... everyone calls this place TSM already, anyway. Also, are we still using Article Manager for this? If so, cool, but if not, I'd like to be setup as I was before (I'm an admin in AM, since I used to handle all the mainpage stuff), so we don't have a single point of failure if our one person is indisposed. I'd also be willing to help screen writers and weed out the shitty ones.

Yes, I was busy with friends and family for the holidays. And I was also busy being sick. Meh. Anyway, a few suggestions. I generally like the look of the Beta page, but that's way too many subcategories. Most of them can probably go. Writers should not use their forum handles when writing articles. If this is supposed to be an actual website, not an extension of a messageboard, then it needs to look as professional as possible. If I see an article by "Kingofthe909," I'm not going to think, "Oooh, that might be interesting," I'm going to think, "WTF is a 'Kingofthe0909?'" (Not trying to pick on King here, but it's a decent example.) Using your real name should be encouraged, or at least a variation thereof. No one is going to find you and kill you because you signed your name to a column. (unless they already knew where you lived... ) Are articles going to be in Pending status until an editor approves them?

I just made a new thread in Feedback, so the interested parties (and their ideas) can be easily collected.

I have received several PM's from writers and editors so far, hopefully tonight, I will be contacting you all with login information so you can begin testing things out and familiarizing your self with the back end of the site. -------- http://thesmartmarks.com/ Above is the link to the testing grounds... Soon, I will have the list of writers/editors done, and will be contacting you all with passwords and such so you can login and begin to fill it with crap. Yes, Crap, as in post whatever you want just to fill the database and test things out. Your actual writing will be put to the test later on. I am looking into the rating system thing, however havn't found much to addon to this software such a thing. Linking back to these forums as the same article is the only thing I see right now. ------ If you are wanting to become a writer or editor please PM me ( Admin, not Dr. Tom ) on the forums with the following... First/Last Name* Pen Name E-mail AIM contact (if you don't have one, an MSN or YahooIM, just let me know which one, or all three) What you want to contribute to..... Sports?, Etertainment? be as specific or as broad as you want, just some type of input. If you arn't contributing, tell me you want to be a editor or proof reader... If there is anything else you would like to tell me, let me know... *First and last name are optional, but it would be nice to know you all on a more personal level than board names, when you write an article. This top section will be updated time to time with whatever you guys need to know... ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Ok, I just finished reading the other thread about the possible relaunch of the mainpage. I must say that I didn't think there was that much interest in getting it going again. It's encouraging to see several people expressing interesting in writing and contributing to it. It's also good to see that those people are among the brightest of our users, and will probably make the best writers, both in terms of quality content and the finer points of spelling and grammar. I've made this new thread so that those who are serious about relaunching the mainpage can contribute to the discussion here. Feel free to re-post your ideas and points here, and to brainstorm about new ones. Here are some things I've considered, based on reading the other thread, my experiences as a writer and editor of the mainpage here, and my experiences with other sites: -- We should stick to articles, not a blog-style system. -- All articles should have a corresponding discussion thread in an "Article Feedback" section. I've seen a few sites where this is created automatically when the article is posted. This would obviously be the easiest way of doing things. -- Writers should have access to a Writers Forum, visible only to the writers, editors, and mods/admins. Here, article ideas can be discussed, information can be shared, etc. Access would be based on group membership and permission masks. -- Writing articles requires posting them in Article Manager, and also requires knowledge of at least basic HTML. I can setup accounts in Article Manager once we've decided who's going to be writing. The way we've done things in the past was to require all writers to have their articles edited, then approved for submission by an editor. The Writers' forum would help make sure that no article sits unapproved for too long. (This all presumes we keep Article Manager, of course...) -- In addition to writers, we would need capable folks to serve as editors. This could be in addition to being a writer, or someone could simply be an editor (note that anyone with Editor rights can still write and publish articles in Article Manager). It would also be good if we could have a talented graphic artist on board. -- Rudo's comments about writers needing feedback intrigue me. I've always felt writing was its own reward, and was an inherently selfish exercise. Perhaps my view was, and is, myopic. Without adopting a blog system, how can we ensure that writers are having their article read? Hit counters? Discussion threads for each article? Something I haven't thought of yet? -- Existing writers who wish to remain writing for the mainpage are, of course, welcome to do so. Past writers who did a good job and are interested in going forward would also be welcomed back into the fold. OK, discuss away.

Ok, I see the prospering thread in Feedback. It's good that so many of our users (and so far, they seem to be among the more intelligent ones) are interested in relaunching the mainpage. I think we need to start discussing it here, too. And probably make a new thread. I was considering make a subforum that only the admins and the users who had expressed real interest could see. I'm not quite sure how I'd do that without using a member group and masks, though.

That actually might IMPROVE Baltimore's offense. It will. Past readers of my NFL column here will remember that I used to refer to Lewis as JAMAL~!, in the fine tradition of PRIEST~! and MARSHALL~! After his miserable season this year, Lewis has lost the single-name tilde-bang status reserved for the best RBs.

Option C sounds too swingy. One upset could kill you there, while one upset in another system is just one more game. I'm aware that greater risk = greater reward, but the 1-16 power picks approach just seems gimmicky to me. After some thought, I actually like the spreads, so long as we're using the real Vegas lines. So I'll stick with what we have now: option A. Picks made on the other board, though I'd like to add 5 to my TB points. Since I just found out I had a team here now. :-/

I think it was the threat of the steel-toed boot that did it... PH34R Hoff's footwear. And not just because hit feet were in them.

I figured you had taken your baseball columns to a site where you could get more traffic and publicity. And I certainly wouldn't blame anyone for doing that, since writing (especially writing without compensation) is an inherently selfish exercise. Actually, you probably are. Ah, the glory days, when we had 7-10 new articles a week, and several writers getting more pub for both themselves and TSM by being cross-posted at other sites. Unfortunately, the business has lost popularity since then, we've lost a ton of writers, and the aborted mainpage revamp of last summer pretty much killed dead the chances of starting it up again. I suppose we could hire more writers, but then we'd be doing the same "wrestling with a splash of pop culture" that infinite other sites are doing. Yawn. If we're going to seriously relaunch the mainpage, it has to be as something different. Also, I used to screen the potential writers and do a lot of editing work. I don't really have the time to do that anymore, and there aren't many people I'd trust to do it in my place.

But if that same URL went to the main forums page instead, would we really be losing anything?

Likewise. Heck, I have books piled up on the floor after I moved because I've been too lazy to put a new bookcase together. :-/

Just buy a laser printer. Screw those commie ink cartidges. Buying a couple of those is more than the bloody printer costs. Lasers are usually faster, more reliable, have a lower per-page printing cost, and are quite reasonably priced. You can get a good laser for basic home use for about $150. Color lasers for home or small office use start around $400-500.

Better idea: let's just do away with post counts altogether.

The only article in the last 4 weeks has been Satanico's DVD updates. I think this means the mainpage is clinically deceased. Why not just drop it and become a forum? We're obviously not going to bring in a whole new stable of writers.

Meh, getting everyone together for an AIM chat may not work. We can always bandy things about here.

You're laughing with me, not at me, right?

<{POST_SNAPBACK}> Requoted, considering some recent controversy. I think discussing staff would be a good idea.

Hmmm, a sports-themed show would be a good endeavor, IMO. "The Bobby Abreu Hour, with Al Keiper"

Hope it was a good one, mang.

That wouldn't be NEARLY as much FUN without Mike's USE of CAPITAL LETTERS to emphasize his POINTS, though, Colonel. Random shouting just wouldn't be the same...

1... Blastoff