Way back when I began the site and we started writing about the Redskins in 2002, there was no such thing as ‘blogs’. We were just a few rabid fans that were sick of reading the rigamarole of everyday media, and in a new world of technology, thought it might be of interest to other fans to give our very lay, ‘non-educated’ viewpoint of all things Redskins. I remember people telling me that I was crazy to think that anybody would care what your average Joe said about the Redskins. Over time, we developed a following, almost a cult following of sorts, and I think people realized that we were actually a group of pretty educated fans, and that we had some fairly intelligent and informed things to say – and with nobody pulling our purse strings.
Eventually blogs came into existence and more and more of those Average Joes began to express their opinions – the blogosphere as you know it was born. But in it’s infancy, the quality was poor. We had always taken the time to polish our articles… proofread, spell check, proofread once more, and then post. So when we saw that there was so much garbage out there, we thought it was important to maintain the level of quality that we had come to strive for, and maintain our articles SEPARATELY from blogs that might be a little looser in form. The blogs also gave us an opportunity to write more first person material when most of our articles had been written from a standard third person vantage point.
Moving forward on into the future though, the blog world has caught up and there is no real reason to separate the two anymore. Lots of people write very high quality material in blogs, and there isn’t near the stigma attached to it as there used to be. Even the journalists write blogs! (That’s an inside joke from back in the day at a Redskins Mini Camp that only a select few will get or understand – if you are one of those and are reading this – much love brothers)
So I just wanted to post an announcement that from now on, every single thing that is written at THN will be in the blogger, and we will no longer separate the articles from the blogs.
I WILL however create a separate category in the blogger to both house all of the old articles we have written, and to post anything that we feel is of exclusive quality – like player interviews etc.
I just want to thank the thousands and thousands of Redskins fans that have poured over the content here at THN in the last eleven years. It has been an incredible experience to provide what I hope has been a great service to Redskins nation. There are THIRTEEN HUNDRED AND SIXTY SIX articles in the articles database – that’s incredible to me, a guy who started the site on a whim and with nothing but an idea over a decade ago. There are almost as many blogs as well now – more than 2500 pieces of exclusive content created for Redskins fans, and there are many from the early days that got lost when there was no such thing as content management systems. (I created a rudimentary one myself eventually, but we still lost some of our original content as we used to wipe it out daily and start fresh because there were no mechanisms in place not to at that time). Seem primitive? That’s just the way it was my Redskins brothers and sisters, there wasn’t even a Google to look for stuff in – we were all loving the new Dogpile!
Moreover, I want to thank all of the great guys that have helped contribute content to the site over the last ten-plus years – too many to count over the years, and I would prefer to mention them all as a group, rather than risk rubbing someone I forgot the wrong way. Every last one of you that has ever contributed anything to THN – and subsequently to Redskins Nation – is greatly appreciated by yours truly. My heartfelt gratitude to all of you.
It’s been an amazing ride – one that I look forward to continuing and bringing you more, and rolling with whatever technology throws at us in the years and generations to come.
Hail brothers and sisters.
Celebrate the ‘new way’ and hit me up on Twitter @TheHogsdotNet and say hello!