Welcome to ArmchairGM
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ArmchairGM aims to be the ultimate community of sports fans -- a place where fans of games ranging from baseball and football to auto racing and mixed martial arts can congregate around a common theme: Fans rule.
We believe that fans deserve to run the show. Why? Because fans are the most important part of the sports world.
Without us fans, there would be no one to read the back page of the local tabloid. No one would sit on the couch to watch football all weekend. There'd be no water cooler debate about who should win the Cy Young or how good or awful the NHL's playoff system is. There would be no March Madness office pools, and no one who wanted to be Like Mike.
We're using MediaWiki -- the same software as Wikipedia -- because we believe in open doors. Any fan should be able to participate, and at ArmchairGM, any and all sports fans are welcome to join the community.
So, sign up or read more.
[edit] Sports Wiki
Any sports fan can add stuff for other sports fans to read, watch, and enjoy. Our sports encyclopedia has articles dealing with mainstream American sports and players but expands to more esoteric endeavors such as Japanese baseball (see, for example, all-star Kosuke Fukudome's entry) and snooker players like Ronnie O'Sullivan.
Unlike Wikipedia, though, the encyclopedia is built with sports fans in mind. Fans can embed flash videos such as YouTube clips into pages and build virtual multimedia directories. Encyclopedia entries have links to opinion content written on ArmchairGM, giving fans not just the facts, but also the red meat that sports fans crave.
[edit] Community Blog
Sports fans are passionate about their teams and are never slow to share their opinions. But as a fan, it's very hard to find an audience. After all, ESPN is not handing out SportsCenter analyst jobs! And with hundreds of thousands of sports blogs out there, differentiating yourself is a full-time job.
ArmchairGM rises to the occasion. Anyone can write about sports. Articles range from in-depth analysis to frivolities. Articles are not limited to just opinions -- they include news items and open threads for games.
Articles are filtered by the community. Each article is adorned with a "vote" box, and articles with enough votes appear front-and-center on ArmchairGM and hit the RSS feed.
We deliver on the promise of instant readership. Because we have hundreds of people writing (and thousands reading!), many of our articles get a dozen or more comments -- and some get many, many more.
[edit] Ratings
Sometimes, we want to express our opinion quickly and easily. That's why ArmchairGM lets fans rate virtually anything in the sports world -- players and teams, of course, but also lighter items such as sports movies and curses.
And we make it easy for fans to grab the ratings and stick them elsewhere. Like our fan-rated list of sports' most memorable moments? A simple snippet of javascript is all you need to grab.
[edit] Curing Boredom
Employers complain that the web is a sinkhole of productivity. At ArmchairGM, we aim to prove them right. So we're building some quick, fun, and fan-powered boredom killers.
Take, for example, the Picture Game. Simple, elegant, and additively fun. You're presented with a question (e.g. "Brady or Manning?) and two pictures. Choose the picture you prefer. It can get a bit snarky and creative, and is certain to have a dose of A-Rod hatred. Because hey, that's what sports fans do.
Or our never-ending set of polls. You can create a poll right now, on anything about sports. Fans just like you are asking the questions.
And if you want to show off your sports ESP, you can! Test your mettle by playing the Pick Game as you attempt to predict which teams will win their games this week. And for sports knowledge, try the never-ending sports quiz.
[edit] A Sense of Community
The real value to ArmchairGM? We foster a sense of community among sports fans. ArmchairGM has basic social networking tools -- each fan can create a robust profile, including their own photo galleries and the opportunity to join networks of fans of their favorite teams.
On the fan networks (such as our New York Mets one), fans can meet other fans and share quick thoughts about the team. For sports especially, these thoughts are a great way to share the thrill of victory -- or the agony of defeat -- with your fellow fans.
Through these networks, one can meet like-minded sports fans. That's why we have your typical "friending" tool.
Friending allows people who meet over ArmchairGM to recognize each other as friends. But in the sports world, rivalries are heated and differences unresolvable. So we added the natural counterpart to friends: foes. Someone pissing you off? Another fan can't seem to stop talking about Pete Rose? Or maybe the fan roots for the Yankees? Well, your friend network has no room for that guy. So, add him to your network of foes.
Other times, though, friends and foes are too stark. ArmchairGM provides a middle-ground -- gifts. A fan can select little icons to send to another fan, and add a personal message with the gift. Some "gifts" are less-than-flattering, such as "tissues" (for when your team loses) or an "asterisk" (for when you receive undue accolades).
Gifts, like everything else on ArmchairGM, are entirely free.
[edit] Messaging
Unfortunately, wikis typically have very poor user-to-user messaging systems. Wikipedia, for example, uses the "Talk" page -- an innovation in 1999, but three generations antiquated today. Fostering community on a wiki is therefore difficult.
So, we made messaging easier. Each fan has their own "board," an easy way for others to send the fan a message -- privately or publicly. We also have a site-wide activity scout which shows all edits, comments, and votes/ratings in real time. Finally, on the front page, each fan is met with a feed of their friends' recent activity on the site. Combined, these tools make communication between fans seamless.
[edit] Rewarding Fans
Sports fans are highly competitive, and expect to be rewarded for their efforts. Fans on ArmchairGM get the recognition they are due. We measure fans by giving them points for virtually every activity on the site, and our top fans are honored on an ongoing, monthly, and weekly basis. As you advance up the points scoreboard, you hit a new fan level. Fans start off as Little Leaguers and can aspire to be Legends! Already, two fans has hit Legend status.
But because different fans are interested in different things -- one person may love commenting on articles, another may be a dedicated editor of the encyclopedia - ArmchairGM users also receive awards for hitting task-specific milestones. Like gifts, these awards appear on your profile as icons, denoting your achievement for all to see.
Because remember, at the end of it all, there'd be no sports without sports fans.
