Hello, I’m Joel Thorman, Editorial Director of Team Brands for SB Nation. Last week, we posted an article about a big change coming to Rule of Tree and other California communities.
I want to start by thanking all the contributors at Rule of Tree – we are grateful for their work and their voices have contributed to making Rule of Tree a thriving fan community. The SB Nation fan communities are a special place because of the contributions from folks like them and from all of you: brilliant fan posts, insightful comments, and a community that comes together online and in real life.
Over the next three months, we’ll be moving to a new model on Rule of Tree that will bring in full-time and part-time employees to write, manage communities, and post on social media. You’ll start seeing new bylines and you will be hearing more from these folks – their background, why they are avid fans, and what makes them excited to be part of the Rule of Tree community – over the next few weeks as they are hired. We’ve posted those roles here, and we hope some of the people who write for Rule of Tree will apply for those positions.
I know this is a big change and we are all dedicated to making sure we continue to build a community that you value. If you have any other questions, please let us know. We’re listening and will work to make sure we support the community in this transition – and into the next phase.
Thank you,
Joel
Comments
This Is All Unfortunate
If it is, in fact, being driven by the new independent contractor law, it is a profound example of how stupid and shortsighted this law is.
Does Rule of Tree actually make any revenues? Is that not a criteria here?
Congrats on forcing the Rule of Tree writers and community to likely migrate to a new site. Not excited …….
By hoyaparanoia on 12.23.19 10:48am
Agree
Hard to see the rationality of that kind of law impacting a truly tiny community like this one, but it’s what can happen when things are aggregated together into a business, like SB Nation, rather than run independently by volunteers.
For the life of me I can’t see why anyone would want to be a full-time writer for a community that is as utterly small as this one. Other sites on SB Nation have quite a bit of participation but we don’t — different institution with a much smaller overall interest level.
By Brendan Ross on 12.25.19 5:44am
Rule of Tree is small for a variety of reasons
And one is certainly the relatively small Stanford fan base. But it’s also a question of critical mass. USC, for example, has an extensive fan base, but Conquest Chronicles from SB Nation is pretty small. Dawg Pound, Addicted to Quack and California Golden Blogs, by contrast, are much larger. Rule of Tree is also competing with other Stanford online fan communities, some of which are quite a bit larger.
By Jeff Tarnungus on 12.31.19 9:28am
Nuts!!
Respectfully. It’s been suspenseful, waiting for the next paradigm to shift, in this early internet age.
By Candid One on 12.24.19 1:34am