[Willie Bee]

15 points for blogging your Handicapper view/pick on MySBRforum.com. Your submission must be at least 500 words and present insight and/or opinion on a matchup. Points will also be given for using the "Blog Back" feature.

http://forum.sbrforum.com/sbr-points...-get-them.html

Just wanted to expand a little on the 'blogging for points' that Bill Dozer briefly touched on in a previous thread (linked above). This little exercise is actually where the idea of points originated months ago, And like the rest of the points process, we will no doubt be changing this as we go and tweak it to make it better.

We're about to get into that really busy portion of the sports calendar with baseball heading towards the playoffs, football kicking off at the collegiate and professional levels, the NHL season cranking up a month from now, the NBA season a few weeks after that and finally college hoops in early November. Whew! The condensed version of what I just said is there's a lot of sports action for everyone to write about on the horizon.

1) You can blog all you want, but we will only award points for one blog per day per poster.

2) We will take the best of the daily entries and republish them on our front page site (www.sbrforum.com) either in the ‘article boxes’ or in the ‘blog roll.’ In the case of those for the article boxes, a title and blurb will be added by the editor on duty that day (more times than not, that is me).

3) In the case of EXCEPTIONAL pieces, more than 15 points may be rewarded. By exceptional, the pieces will have to be well-written with proper grammar and spelling (they’re, there, their) in addition to providing solid and unique content.

4) If you’re wondering about just exactly how much is 500 words, open a blank MS Word page, set your margins to 1-inch on all four sides, set your font to Arial 12-pt, and once you get to the bottom of one page you should have roughly 500 words. The system notifies us when a new blog has been added that exceeds a certain character limit; this doesn’t always mean they are 500 words in length.

5) No blogs that are simple cut-n-paste entries from another writer/author will be considered. Bloggers should ALWAYS credit their sources. Any plagiarism whatsoever will remove that blogger from future points rewards.

If anyone needs a few pointers on exactly how to credit sources or with your writing in general, feel free to hit me up via PM or e-mail (willie[at]sbrnewsdesk[dot]com).

FYI: For a good idea of what 500 words looks like, this post is 466 words in length, counting the bit in the quote box at the beginning and discounting the URL. Best of luck and happy blogging.

EDIT1, Sep 14, 2009: We're changing up how the points are going to be awarded from this time on. If your blog is picked to appear in our Blog Roll or as a Poster's Picks on our front page site (www.sbrforum.com), you will get 15 points. Get them in early as it's impossible for us to get a blog loaded at 6:00 p.m. for an 8:00 p.m. game up in time. Thanks.

EDIT2, Sep 25, 2009: Any blog chosen to be a headline piece at www.sbrforum.com will be worth 50 points (600+ words minimum).

EDIT3, Nov 4, 2009: To be eligible for points awards, blogs for specific games need to be submitted at least one hour before the listed start time of the contest.

EDIT4, Sept. 27, 2010: Points will not be given to blog authors whose blogs are not hand-picked to be featured on SBRforum.com.

[MexicanStallion]

Thanks for sharing Willie. I might write a blog in the near future and see how it turns out.

[Squirrel]

Willie - Do they have to be about the mainstream sports? Most of my knowledge comes in obscure sports that Americans barely understand let alone bet on!!

[head_strong]

So if you write 1 500 word blog each day, you will receive 15 points.....?

[Willie Bee]

Originally Posted by Squirrel

Willie - Do they have to be about the mainstream sports? Most of my knowledge comes in obscure sports that Americans barely understand let alone bet on!!

Tell me you're going to start a series on elephant soccer in Thailand, please?! They don't all have to be about (American) football, baseball, basketball...how 'non-mainstream' do you mean?

Originally Posted by head_strong

So if you write 1 500 word blog each day, you will receive 15 points.....?

As long as it's relevant to sports, establishes a side or opinion about a game/series/season and is well-written. Don't PM me 20 seconds after you write it asking where your points are as that's something that is going to take some time to get to every day or so.

[Squirrel]

Originally Posted by Willie Bee

Tell me you're going to start a series on elephant soccer in Thailand, please?! They don't all have to be about (American) football, baseball, basketball...how 'non-mainstream' do you mean?

Not totally obscure, i'm not about to start making blogs about Taiwanese thumb wrestling or anything. Just generally sports that are big around the world but maybe not so much in America.

Rugby, Cricket etc etc

[Willie Bee]

Rugby, cricket, 'real' football/futbol, anything like that is definitely mainstream enough here. You ever been to an elephant soccer match Squirrel? Nothing but gambling going on during those matches.

[rake922]

Willie how do we get the actual pts rewarded?

I wrote a blog over the weekend and waited a day to get the pts... After a day I removed the entry

[flyingillini]

Thanks for the info, I have already been doing this..

[Willie Bee]

Originally Posted by rake922

Willie how do we get the actual pts rewarded?

Right now it's a manual thing. I am Manuel, for the most part, and you're going to have to be patient with when the points get rewarded for the time being.

[DacBietViet]

Can i get my 15 points for blogging. Submitted it about 20 minutes ago. Appreciate it WB

[Willie Bee]

Originally Posted by DacBietViet

Can i get my 15 points for blogging. Submitted it about 20 minutes ago. Appreciate it WB

Not until you blog everything that has been included in this thread so that I know you've actually read it all. God bless.

[DacBietViet]

Done!

[MexicanStallion]

Would a blog about the Pittsburgh Steelers upcoming season be acceptable? Such as a preview and prediction of the record. There wouldnt necessarily be much of the gambling section unless I mentioned like the futures bet on wins or such.

[Mendozaaaa]

Willie Bee - the PM I sent you. Is that the type of stuff you want for a blog? I did it this morning (AEST of course).

[DacBietViet]

WB, can you confirm my blog is eligible and credit me. Thanks

[head_strong]

Show me a better blog then the one I did on the Rockies yesterday and I will gladly ignore not being rewarded the 15 points.

[pico]

i made a blog about afl playoff. where is my 15 pts?

[Willie Bee]

Ok, one last time. The awarding of points for blogging is not automatic. The blogs will be reviewed and I will do my best to get to the points once per day. There may be a longer delay on the weekends, so be patient. If and when we have someone to man this process 24/7, we'll let you know. End of story.

[rake922]

So don't PM willie? just do it then wait a day I think

[head_strong]

Willie has spoken, 10-4.

[Willie Bee]

Points caught up through blogs submitted as of noon Eastern today. If you think you got passed over, PM me.

Congrats to Mendozaaaa and jillmark for making our Front Page (www.sbrforum.com)

[smitch124]

Originally Posted by Squirrel

Not totally obscure, i'm not about to start making blogs about Taiwanese thumb wrestling or anything. Just generally sports that are big around the world but maybe not so much in America.

Rugby, Cricket etc etc

I would prefer to see blogs on sports like this rather than ones I already know fairly well.

Get to writing!!

[pico]

aye aye captain willie

[DacBietViet]

Points caught up through blogs submitted as of noon Eastern today. If you think you got passed over, PM me.


I think i got passed over. Still didn't receive my points from my blog yesterday.

[payingthejuice]

Added a blog ... lets hope I did it correctly

[bigdog3580]

Blogs?? What are those?? Who has time to write them?

[Madukwe]

Just added a blog about Tebow and Florida's chances this season

[pico]

add a blog about utah ml

[bbyhill]

Can we write about horse racing?

[FooFighters]

hm never had a blog

[pico]

http://pico.mysbrforum.com/

just wrote a blog about recap of last week's AFL games and the two games coming up spread prediction.

[ronjon619]

can we blog about skateboarding?

[Willie Bee]

Originally Posted by ronjon619

can we blog about skateboarding?

If it fits the criteria listed in the first post of this thread, sure. Where do you bet on skateboarding events, by the way?

[payingthejuice]

Blog added Titans vs Steelers matchup