How to FBB: A User's Guide for Washington Nationals fans

Welcome to Federal Baseball (FBB), a Washington Nationals support group. We've been hard at work under the current management covering the Nats since August of 2007.

Heading into our eighth season as part of the SB Nation, we've added a few talented writers who will be contributing on a more regular basis this season, so we thought it made sense to reintroduce ourselves and provide some hints about how to use the site.

FanShots, FanPosts, the comments section, Twitter, Facebook, live GameThreads where the readers can chat, link posts, infographics (which are amazing, just wait) and our Nats Nightly podcast. So how do you FBB?

Comments Section:

This is where the discussion on Federal Baseball takes place, especially during the GameThreads. Helpful hints? Check out the image below while you read this. If you want to reply directly to something someone has said, hit that "reply" button and you won't have to apologize for a "reply fail" and you'll keep the individual threads for particular comments going. If you like something you see, "rec" it as you see with the first comment there. Enough people rec a comment and it turns green. Want to skim through the new comments on a story in rapid fashion? Embrace the "Z" key. When you click onto the comments section, the "Z" key will change your life.

You can also add images and GIFs (though a lot of them tends to slow high-comment GameThreads, so use judiciously) to add some color to the threads.

You can "flag" comments too if someone's trolling or getting personal or offensive...

Comments Pt. 2: Images, links, etc.

Across the board under the subject line and "message' header: B = Bold, I = italics, then strike, and block quotes, bullet points, numbered lists, pictures, links and spoiler windows, which blacks out the comments so you have to scroll over it to read the content. Have fun with all these, abuse them if you like. Also, you can preview comments before you post and edit afterwards, though only for a short time, so type quickly.

NOTE: Also, this may be helpful to anyone who has ever read the comments section and wondered what the heck people were talking about. It does get a bit weird a times, but we don't want the silliness that so many of us enjoy to start to become exclusionary, so our good friend (and occasional author) d_c_guy came up with this helpful primer:

Washington #Nationals Fan User Guide: 2015 Federal Baseball Lexicon #Nats http://t.co/2ns7M4MPxg pic.twitter.com/v6kwMgkIsq

— federalbaseball (@federalbaseball) March 16, 2015

So now you know how to comment, right? What if you have thoughts, images, tweets or something else to share?

FanShots and FanPosts:

This is your place to shine and share your thoughts on all things Washington Nationals. Have a comment that's too much/long for the comments section? Create a FanPost! There's an entire section for them on the right side of FBB if your scroll down below the Top 5 stories and we created a group that stays on the front page now so that they're not as far down the page. Turn those thoughts and long comments into posts of your own and if they get a good response (and don't have copyrighted material, profanity, etc) we'll promote them too.

FanShots?: You may have noticed that there are more FanShots on the front page these days. That's part of an effort on our part to get more shareable, interesting items from around the internet in front of your eyes. See a story, video, Tweet, or image you like? Create a FanShot. We're on top of a lot of the news and we've added one person to our staff to find this stuff for you and share it on FBB and on our Facebook page. But we can always use your help, cause sometimes (not often, we're so on top of stuffs) we miss things. If you want to catch up on all the latest FanShots, they're on the front page now too as you can see above. We'll keep the FanShots and FanPosts up high in the "river" as the stories below the Top 5 are referred to behind the scenes at FBB, so that you can find them quickly.

TWITTER:

We're on Twitter @federalbaseball where we tweet live updates during the game for anyone who's unable to watch live or follow in the GameThreads (so if you turn FBB on in your notifications, live updates will show up while you're out and about and unable to keep track) or anyone who is at the game and wants pitch counts and updates, and we also do our best to keep you up-to-date with all the latest Nationals news by retweeting everything we find that's worth reading. Check out our Twitter feed below...

Tweets by @federalbaseball

FACEBOOK: (FB address - facebook.com/nationals.federal.baseball) Make sure to go to this one, because if you go to facebook.com/federalbaseball, that is the personal feed of some guy named "Ed Chigliak" who likes Marcel Proust quotes and links to pop culture-y stuff way too much. If you don't know "Ed" feel free to ask around, opinions vary on the way he used to run things around here.

We've made a concerted effort to pick up our facebook game in the last year-plus, posting links to all of our stories and sharing everything that we find out there on the internets that's worth sharing and B Sheridan (aka md_dc on Twitter) is taking a more active role over there as well now. The comments and discussion are picking up over there too, so if you're not following us on facebook, why aren't you following us on Facebook?

NATS NIGHTLY:

Two years ago now, Dave Nichols from the District Sports Page, Doghouse and I decided to make good on something we'd talked about for years and finally start doing a nightly Nationals-themed radio show.

Each night, as soon as we can after the game is over, we get on BlogTalkRadio, post a link in the comments section of the night's post game report and talk Nationals for 15-20 minutes. What just happened, big news, trades, etc. We cover it all, and the show is archived in a group at the bottom of FBB's front page and on iTunes. Check it out, you can even call in and talk if you're so inspired. Admittedly, it's quickly become my favorite thing to do.

Now let's introduce you to our staff. Most of them you'll know if you spend time at FBB, but we don't want newcomers to have to wonder how all these people ended up here.

FBB's staff of writers new and old:

Name: Patrick Reddington; Role at FBB: Credentialed writer, site manager, post game reports, Nats Nightly co-host w/ Dave Nichols from District Sports Page and Doghouse.

Bio: Proust, Kerouac, Alain Resnais, Alan Moore and baseball. That pretty much sums it up, but for the sake of a better intro and to expand on my official bio, I'm also obsessed with directors like David Lynch, Patrice Leconte and Wong Kar Wai, poets like Gary Snyder, Basho, Allen Ginsberg and William Carlos Williams and writers like J.D. Salinger (but obsessed in a positive way in that case), Yukio Mishima and Albert Camus and I'm a comic book/graphic novel fan who likes Will Eisner's work, Jonathan Hickman and the art of J.H. Williams III and music by Brian Wilson, Bob Dylan, Sufjan Stevens, of Montreal, the Olivia Tremor Control and Jim O'Rourke, just to name a few. I also practice meditation and I'm a vegetarian. But enough about me... BTW: the picture above is of me, Stan Kasten and Mike Rizzo (left to right) and yes that's a Montreal Royals cap. Big Expos fan growing up and I followed the franchise to D.C. and fell in love with the nation's capital.

Name: Doghouse; Role at FBB: Post game WPA Graphs, co-host of Nats Nightly. 

Bio: "Doghouse grew up in Southern California, where he cheered for Rod Carew’s run at .400 with the Angels before drifting away from baseball for many years. The Nationals brought him back into the baseball fold in 2005, and he hasn’t strayed since. He’s been hanging around FBb since long before its first 100-comment game thread, when he used to calculate wins-above-replacement projections using an abacus, a pointed stick, and clay tablets. Now he just grumbles about all the Johnny-come-latelies, makes in-jokes for the other FBb grognards, and curates a selection of WPA (win-percentage added) highlights after each game. Doghouse is also practically synonymous with DOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM!"

Name: Garrett Hooe; Role at FBB: Statistical analysis, wowing readers with stat-based posts. (No image available).

Bio: A fan since Opening Day 2005, until 2012 I hadn't found an online Nats community with the smart, witty readership I discovered once I began posting regularly here. While it's doubtful I contributed to any of that, Patrick gave me the chance to write about pitching towards the end of the year. It was a blast. Since then, I've posted mostly nonsense on pitching, hitting, and statistical analysis as the real world allows, enjoying each and every season with the knowledgeable (and overwhelmingly civil) folks that make up the Federal Baseball community. If you're a lurker, join in--new viewpoints are what led to my enjoyment, and I bet they'll do the same for you.

It's a pleasure to write for everyone, members and non-members alike. I look forward to doing the same in 2015.

Name: Jim Meyerriecks (@iofshinsplint on Twitter); Role at FBB: In-depth analysis, columnist, big picture thinker.

Bio: Jim Meyerriecks has been writing semi-regularly at Federal Baseball since 2009. When he was a kid growing up in New York, Jim's family often went up to Montreal for a week during summer vacations. These trips usually involved at least one trip to Olympic Stadium to watch the Montreal Expos. As someone who didn't choose his favorite teams based on geography and enjoyed seeing teams build with strong drafting and player development, he became a fan of the Expos in the early 1980s. Now an east coast transplant who has lived in St. Louis for the past 25 years, Jim maintained his allegiance to the franchise when they moved south to Washington, D.C. He's always vocal about what he thinks the team should do to improve, and he's not afraid to call out players or management when they make suboptimal decisions. Be ready to read a lot of rants from Jim this season!

Name: dc Roach; Role at FBB: Series previews, occasional stat-based posts/analysis

Bio: My name is Magnus, and I rarely watch baseball. I learned to love baseball listening to Vin Scully on the radio each evening, supplemented with words and numbers in the newspaper. I quickly graduated to listening to baseball on the radio, supplemented by words and numbers on my computer. I moved to Northern Virginia in 2002, went to my first Nats game in 2005, and started following Zim and the boys full-time in 2010. I have been hanging out at Federal Baseball ever since, encouraging the use of play by play in gamethreads and writing quirky, stat-heavy Fanposts. Patrick has invited me to step up and do opposition research (series previews) and help with analysis when the stat muse strikes.

Name: B Sheridan (@md_dc on Twitter); Role at FBB: Social media guru, amazing infographic creator

Bio: (from his Twitter account): "IT guy during the day. At night: Beer league goalie, archivist @NatsArchive, graphics guy @federalbaseball, @JapersRink, and @BarDown. Founder of @CapitalsHill.

Now let's get to the baseball, commenting and fun. And thanks for joining the conversation. And now that we've introduced ourselves to you, feel free to introduce yourselves to us in the comments below. And Let's go Nats!!