CSteph: Thanks for your interest and your feedback.
Some of these are already in practice.
Although your post is excellent - and appreciated - for helping folks work around the structural challenges of the B/R system, it doesn't really address the inequities in the system that I am trying to talk about.
Even if I am taking a selfish view by making my page (rugby) the focus of my argument, there should be some commitment on the part of B/R to wanting to grow that section of the site, when they have committed F/C's in place. Its an investment, because a sport like rugby has a massive potential audience in the USA and is just beginning to get more public recognition, on networks like NBC and the like.
All the barriers I have mentioned don't really support that investment agenda.
So, in conclusion, even if I follow all the tricks of the trade and move on to bigger and better things.... The Rugby section of B/R is still left with no improvements. Doing small things to help give exposure to sites like this, would be a real help.
I don't see any reason - for example - why College Baseball should have a Top Writer competition and Rugby should not.
The number of people in the B/R Rugby Community is twice that of College Baseball.
I understand that these are, often, not conscious choices being made by actual human beings; which is why I would argue that there should be some small efforts made to give exposure to sites like these. The machine needs to be tweaked.
Some of us are not here to try and generate a career path. Some of us are genuinely using B/R as a platform to express our commitment to covering the sport we are passionate about.
So my focus is on doing everything I can to strengthen my page and sport, at the moment, and not my career.
Cheers and thanks!
- Jeff