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Knowing that many of you are only now getting back into your regular routines following the holidays, I'd like to welcome you all back to Buffalo Rumblings, where we have already begun our eighth (!!!) season of Buffalo Bills coverage. Happy New Year, Bills fans!
Before we talk more about 2014, let's give a shout-out to the Bills fans that dedicated more time than anyone else (possibly even including MRW and I) to Rumblings last year. Here, without further ado, were our top five FanPost writers and commenters in terms of volume during the 2013 calendar year.
Rank | Top FanPosters | Top Commenters |
1 | 62 - DynamicHero22 | 4,709 - TheAfghanTwilight |
2 | 43 - Ron From NM | 4,531 - Joe P. |
3 | 39 - zen_bills | 4,467 - Stetz |
4 | 36 - abayarde | 4,375 - JonR67 |
5 | 30 - doctork44 | 3,912 - SERGEANT MAJOR THOR |
Think you can beat any of these folks in either category in 2014? Drop another hobby or three, and you may very well stand a chance! Thanks for all of the great contributions you made to our community this year, Bills fans. We're getting quite good at wading through tough times together.
About the community
We mentioned up top that 2014 will be the eighth NFL Draft and the eighth Bills season that we've covered, and that's true. The community will officially be seven years old on April 7, 2014, but the very first Bills draft pick we wrote about here was Marshawn Lynch, so we've been at this for quite a while.
Community Guidelines: It's never a bad thing to skim through those every once in a while, particularly if you're newer to the community. By now, most of you are aware of how the blog works and how the community gets on; let's strive to get better at what we do this year, anyway.
Masthead: These are the people that are involved in content production for our community. Yes, we're still looking to add that elusive new writer to the staff; the job feels a lot like our very own version of a Defense Against the Dark Arts position. Maybe y'all want to convince one Mr. Brendan Harrington, our podcast producer, to write up some of his thoughts more frequently!
Featured sections
Podcast: Yes, we have our very own audio show, hosted by the aforementioned Brendan. It's a weekly affair during the season, and we'll keep it rolling during the off-season, but it very likely will not be a weekly show out of season. You can get caught up on the show at that link.
Videos: MRW's big project in 2014 will be to establish a video feature for the site. He's already in the process of doing exactly that. Audio versions of our video productions will be released as downloadable podcasts, as well.
2014 NFL Draft: We've managed to keep this section contained to one lonely story at this point in time. Needless to say, that section will grow dramatically over the next four months in the lead-in to this year's draft, which runs from May 8-10.
Bills re-watch: We spent a good amount of time poring over the NFL's All-22 video this season to break down the Bills in even further detail, and that will continue this off-season with scouting reports not dissimilar to this big one on EJ Manuel that we wrote a couple of weeks ago.
Columns: Most of what we do here are functions of news-gathering and discussion-starting - but when we have something meaningful to say, we'll say it, and it'll always land in our columns section.
If you're a regular here - i.e. you visit our home page every day - then you're likely not missing many conversations to begin with. These sections exist to make things easier to find, and we'll look to improve what we do in all of these areas this calendar year.
Where else to find us
Twitter. Facebook. Google+. YouTube. We'll have plenty more to say and share in each of those locations, with help from Stephen Konar, our social media manager.
Thanks, as always, for embarking on this strange, twisted journey that is being a Bills fan with us, dear readers. Here's to a more productive 2014 season that, we can only hope, yields a playoff berth for our favorite team.