Ask NotGraphs (#9)

Dearest NotGraphs,

For the past half decade or so, I have been entrenched in a fantasy baseball league comprised of my brothers, my father, and many of my cousins. Naturally, the league message board has become the main forum for all matters important to my extended family–marriages, childbirth, and of course the woes of the Kansas City Royals. Unfortunately, the message board can only be accessed by league members. This left many sad* wives, aunts and grandmothers out of the loop.

To fashion a remedy, last year the league commissioner (my brother) created a blog** for our family’s fantasy baseball league. Though it was lauded by all league members as a brilliant idea, the blog is prone to go long stretches without new posts. I do my best to post regularly, but I seem to be the only league member with any such dedication. Over nearly a year on this series of tubes, 72.6% of the blog’s posts have been authored by yours truly. Is there any way I can encourage the other league members to post more often?

When it comes to my own posts, I often have difficulty coming up with content that will be enjoyable for the blog’s handful of readers***. Now that my daily countdown to pitchers and catchers reporting is over, I’m not certain what I might use for blog fodder. Do you have any advice about how to keep coming up with fresh, entertaining blog content?

Many thanks,
Aspiring Baseball Blogger Suffering From Writer’s Block

*Presumably.
**I’ll spare you the web address, as you would only discover that the blog is really quite pathetic.
***When my wife asks why I bother posting to a blog that almost nobody reads, I have no dignified response.

Hey Blogger,

Seems to me that there’s only one solution. These wives, aunts, and grandmothers who want to be in the loop need to learn how to play fantasy baseball. You say the message board was working– people were posting– and it’s only now that you’ve switched to the blog format that no one is interested in contributing. So, it seems obvious to me. Tell Grandma that if she wants pictures of the grandchildren, she needs to get up to speed on the difference between Ryan Zimmerman and Jordan Zimmermann, start calculating some WHIPs, and draft herself a team! Grandparents, I am told, will do anything for more pictures of grandchildren, so this should not be a problem. She may even be willing to contribute to the cost of buying a better Internet to accommodate these extra league members!

Not a good solution? Okay, I’ll try again. As the creator of dozens of blogs, most of which nobody read, I can tell you– it is very hard (and also utterly pointless!) to motivate yourself to create entertaining content for things without an audience. It is even harder to get other people to do so! If you want your league-mates to post to your pointless blog more often, you need to provide incentives. Maybe your league needs some blog-related rules. No lineup changes unless you post to the blog? Sounds like a way to make the league a lot more fun!

Really, I think I agree with your wife. Why are you posting to a blog no one reads? Also, if everyone was so interested in this blog existing, why is no one reading it? Do these wives, aunts, and grandmothers read the blog, or don’t they? And if they want to read the league message board, why can’t you just e-mail them the posts every few days? Or give them your login information? Are you worried Grandma’s going to accidentally drop Mike Moustakas off your team if you give her your fantasy baseball password? My stepdad’s family has a private Facebook Group. This lets family members update each other without having to go to the trouble of creating a family blog, or enabling access to a fantasy baseball message board. Maybe you could try that.

I’m still not answering your actual question, am I? How to motivate interesting baseball-related blog content? I wish I knew.

Good luck,
Jeremy

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