Links?

[AstrosFan]

Maybe not a forum, but a page stickied somewhere on the site, where people can post helpful links for researching various baseball topics, thus enabling stronger discussion here. Whoever is in charge of these things could categorize it based on the forums we have here, to give a suggestion. What does everyone think about this?

[Captain Cold Nose]

Maybe not a forum, but a page stickied somewhere on the site, where people can post helpful links for researching various baseball topics, thus enabling stronger discussion here. Whoever is in charge of these things could categorize it based on the forums we have here, to give a suggestion. What does everyone think about this?

We have something like that for the popular Yankee and Red Sox forums. There are several forums where that could certainly work. Each forum would have the links relevant to it.

[AstrosFan]

I was talking about a single place devoted to links on the site, categorized in accordance with the many forum categories we have here. Although now that I consider it, having a stickied links thread for each forum on the site might not be a bad idea. That way, users could just go to the subject they are interested in, open up the forum, and the links page would be there. I think suggestions for links should be PMed to the moderators of the forums, who can then update the original post. Suggestions should include, in addition to the link, the site name and a brief description. That way, everything will be kept more organized.

[Captain Cold Nose]

I was talking about a single place devoted to links on the site, categorized in accordance with the many forum categories we have here. Although now that I consider it, having a stickied links thread for each forum on the site might not be a bad idea. That way, users could just go to the subject they are interested in, open up the forum, and the links page would be there. I think suggestions for links should be PMed to the moderators of the forums, who can then update the original post. Suggestions should include, in addition to the link, the site name and a brief description. That way, everything will be kept more organized.

I could get behind this. It's not like someone would actually be promoting their own site, it would be reference material that someone could easily access without really having to leave Fever.

[Mattingly]

I was talking about a single place devoted to links on the site, categorized in accordance with the many forum categories we have here. Although now that I consider it, having a stickied links thread for each forum on the site might not be a bad idea. That way, users could just go to the subject they are interested in, open up the forum, and the links page would be there. I think suggestions for links should be PMed to the moderators of the forums, who can then update the original post. Suggestions should include, in addition to the link, the site name and a brief description. That way, everything will be kept more organized.

Links to what? What kinds of links are you referring to? An example or two would be helpful.

[AstrosFan]

Baseball sites pertinent to each forum topic, like baseballprospectus.com for the stats forum, or sabr.org for the history forum.

[Mattingly]

Baseball sites pertinent to each forum topic, like baseballprospectus.com for the stats forum, or sabr.org for the history forum.

Who in the stats forum doesn't already know of Baseball Prospectus? Wouldn't sabr.org be more pertinent to the stats people than history?

For history, I'd rather use our own baseball-almanac.com and baseball-reference.com (which everyone here already knows about anyway).

I presume that most of the links are already known. I'm not too sure that you can just provide links as easily for non-team forums, since for team forums, there are specific players. For stats, anything SABR and/or Bill James-related would obviously be good.

Baseball history is so wide and varied, I don't think that you could find a specific site without finding about 300 before the day is done.

Here's one of my favorites for history: http://www.sportingnews.com/archives/baseball.html

Here's another: http://espn.go.com/sportscentury/

This one's cute also: http://www.baseballlibrary.com/homepage/

I don't see either of those links being anyway related to stats at all. Sports history has a lot of things, but I prefer the descriptions of the players, rather than some SABR-based analysis of everyone who's played.

[Mattingly]

Who would've thought that Selig would've gotten on the bandwagon? Oh well, good news from Bud Light:

http://mlb.mlb.com/mlb/history/index.jsp

From Wiki, the folks who always manage to break things down into bite-sized pieces that even regular folks can understand:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_baseball

So you say you like links? Why wait for any stickeyed thread? Just click here:

http://www.baseball-links.com/links/History/ (this could be the grand daddy of all links pages)

Now then, which other links do you think should be added?

[AstrosFan]

SABR is far more history oriented that stats oriented. It is centered around historical research. I have no idea why people still think that just because Bill James derived the term "sabermetrics" from the Society for American Baseball Research, SABR is somehow a stats-centered organization. It's not. It has a statistical analysis committee, but it is mostly devoted to historical research.

And Baseball Prospectus was an example. Who cares if it's widely known? I'm just suggesting that organizing links pages here at BBF with contributions from members could make researching various topics easier, and could result in stronger discussion, as I mentioned earlier.

[Captain Cold Nose]

SABR is far more history oriented that stats oriented. It is centered around historical research. I have no idea why people still think that just because Bill James derived the term "sabermetrics" from the Society for American Baseball Research, SABR is somehow a stats-centered organization. It's not. It has a statistical analysis committee, but it is mostly devoted to historical research.

And Baseball Prospectus was an example. Who cares if it's widely known? I'm just suggesting that organizing links pages here at BBF with contributions from members could make researching various topics easier, and could result in stronger discussion, as I mentioned earlier.

You could call this one-stop shopping, Matt. There have been plenty of times when, in the middle of historical discussion, I've gone out to other sites from Fever to get information to confirm what I was saying. And that's just me. There are plenty in those forums who use far more involved stuff than I do.

We have the links in two team forums. Those are there just to visit. These would be helpful in the course of general discussion. I don't think having a links thread where best served would be a problem as AstrosFan is proposing it. It's not necessarily going to promote those sites at the expense of this one and it would be left to the discretion of the moderator of that forum whether or not it would be a good site to link to. We're not talking about Johnny Shmendrick's blog about all things Johnny Shmendrick deems worthy here. These are research aides, per se.

[AstrosFan]

Thanks, CCN, that's exactly what I'm talking about.

[Mattingly]

Thanks, CCN, that's exactly what I'm talking about.

In that case, since Captain and I are CE and team co-Mods, you may try sending a PM to the two History Mods, who are listed at the bottom of that forum, to gauge their interest.

Please send a link to this thread and explain in detail what you're saying to them.

[AstrosFan]

In that case, since Captain and I are CE and team co-Mods, you may try sending a PM to the two History Mods, who are listed at the bottom of that forum, to gauge their interest.

Please send a link to this thread and explain in detail what you're saying to them.

I sent a note to them and to Jim Albright, though I probably should have been a little more detailed in the PM. The Stats forum actually has a links page up already, so we don't need to worry about that one either.

Jim, Leecemark, Baseball Guru, and any other mods who read this: My thought is simply to have links pages pertinent to each subject at Baseball Fever as research aides. Suggestions for links should be sent to mods for review, who can decide whether it serves a research purpose or is just a promotion for other sites. I think this could be very useful, and improve discussion at BBF.

[Baseball Guru]

I'd certainly be in favor of it...

Anyone having any suggestions on any links they'd like to see in the History forum, shoot me a PM and I'll take care of it...

[leecemark]

--Its okay by me too.

[jalbright]

I can see this idea would be very useful for the 19th century and History forums, and I've got something like it in the International forum. Other than things like the Baseball Think Factory Hall of Merit and similar internet projects, what exactly would you have in mind for the HOF forum? An issue I have is that if anything, I'd like to reduce the number of stickied threads in my forum, and I need to be convinced that there's enough interest/it's useful enough to warrant being stickied. I have no problem with you starting such a thread and asking for threads and support to have the thread stickied. Maybe when I see it in a more developed state, I'll be more convinced. If I'm convinced its useful and/or popular with the forum regulars, I'll do it. If it meets neither of those standards, it won't be stickied. Fair enough?

[AstrosFan]

If you think there are too many stickied threads on the HOF forum, perhaps we could put HOF sites in the History forum, where Baseball Guru has a thread up already. How does that sound?

[Mattingly]

If you think there are too many stickied threads on the HOF forum, perhaps we could put HOF sites in the History forum, where Baseball Guru has a thread up already. How does that sound?

I presume that, even though I'm not a HoF forum regular, any threads in there would pertain to either the Cooperstown worthiness of players (retired or near retirement, enshrined or not), and likely about the BBF HoF, where forumers discuss individual players' Hof worthiness.

History would be about how players, eras,leagues and games would be remembered, without consideration of anything regarding the HoF.

Please post a few links here that you feel pertain to the various forums already mentioned, and please discuss their relevance to those forums. The forums already mentioned include:

Hall of Fame
History
International
19th Century

Please familiarize yourself with all of any or all of those forums and see what there is that is missing re useful links designed to improve the baseball discussion here. I have already offered some links which I feel are useful, as have you. Please add more links and discuss the helpfulness of each for the relevant forums.

Many thanks.

[jalbright]

If you think there are too many stickied threads on the HOF forum, perhaps we could put HOF sites in the History forum, where Baseball Guru has a thread up already. How does that sound?

Talk to them (History mods) about it. If they're game, so am I.

On another point, if there's stuff for international I don't already have, we can figure out how to fit it into this thread. We can certainly find a way to do it for that forum.

[AstrosFan]

Baseball Guru has included links to sites on 19th century baseball, Negro Leagues Baseball, and the Baseball Hall of Fame, so I don't think there's a problem there. I'll check with Leecemark and see what he thinks.