Welcome to 18 Stripes, the independent voice for Notre Dame sports.
Some of you may know me while others may not. My name is Eric Murtaugh and I was the manager for the Notre Dame site on the SB Nation network before creating this new website. This is the official launch day for this new project and I’m excited to start fresh on this platform. In addition to myself you’ll also see the same writers many of you are familiar with from our past.
You may be asking why we moved and the simple answer is that it was time to make a change. We knew when making the decision to join our former home over 5 years ago that this would be a path we would want to walk down eventually.
A few of you may remember when our site was piloted solo by Whiskey who started the first generation of what you see today or when it was just a few of us in the first year when things really started to take off. Since then, some of us have been married, or had kids, or changed jobs, or graduated from college, or experienced any number of changes to our personal lives. We could no longer fulfill the expectations from our previous owners and we wanted to gain some of our freedom back.
How much will be different?
Not a whole lot but we will be making an effort to get back to our roots. We’ve always been attracted to longer content with more soul and opinion as our editorial foundation. That got lost a little bit as the internet has evolved through the years so we’d like to recapture more of that essence again.
In most other ways, this will be largely the same site you (hopefully) enjoyed in the past.
***
We wanted something more Notre Dame-centric for the new website name but not something generic and bland. We chose 18 Stripes (alternatively Eighteen Stripes, ES, and 18S are all acceptable variations to use) because it covered everything we were looking for in a name.
When the new field turf was installed inside Notre Dame Stadium the school decided to reduce the number of stripes in each end zone to 9, or 18 total, hence 18 Stripes. Each stripe was placed at a 42-degree angle towards the Golden Dome and Basilica, thereby using 1842 to call to mind the founding of the university.
We like the name because it’s creative and is football-based for obvious popularity reasons but it also mixes something modern with the tradition of a grand university.
***
Our new site has several pages for you to peruse. Our home page will always have our latest handful of stories anchored at the top of the page. Below that we have 3 flip boxes that link to our Football, Basketball, and Recruiting pages, as well as a slider photo link to contributor ndmspaint’s archives and the latest WatchND YouTube video.
These pages are also accessible from our menu. The archive page will store all of our stories, while that tab also has a drop-down menu for other sport-specific coverage.
There is also additional info available in our left sidebar and footer including recent comments, recent tweets, and recent posts.
Check out the About Us page from our header menu for more info about our site, our mission, and where our writers call home.
The Site Rules page is also anchored on our header menu and is especially important for those of you who are not familiar with our community and moderation-style. Additionally, we have placed the info on how to use the appropriate coding for our comment section within the Site Rules page. This explains how to insert pictures and GIF’s into our comment section, as well making text bold or italicized.
CLICK HERE TO REGISTER for the site and join our community or head directly to the comment sections of any article and sign-up for 18 Stripes.
While you’re at it if you haven’t already follow us on Twitter (@18stripes) and make sure to like our Facebook page.
Welcome to our new home, we hope you enjoy!
Congrats slipping the bonds of SB Nation and finding an independent home (befitting a Notre Dame blog). Looking forward to longer, more developed pieces. Even if published more infrequently, those types of posts are head and shoulders above the daily #content grinds that most of the internet seems to spew out now.
Wholeheartedly agree! And welcome back Pub.
Thanks man, exactly what we’re shooting for. Welcome back!
Congrats on the new site!
Thank you!
Reporting for duty
This should’ve said “Hello… Well, you know the rest.”
Welcome back!
Oh good lord I already messed up my Username. Oh well glad to see everyone around here again.
/banned
To be added to the 18S Lexicon: Anyone who puts his foot in his mouth immediately upon entering a conversation will be said to have “pulled a Horsfly.”
Also, good to see you!
glad to see it took roughly 12 hours for alot of the familiar people to find everyone again.
It won’t be the full crew until Irish Harry shows up
Is that the ELITE lightskin that used to FREQUENT the old site? Or the FRONT account for the LEGENDARY lightskin?
Congrats on the new digs – 12 character password almost kept me from registering… almost.
Welcome!
so far I’ve created more passwords than posts on here 😀
Me too, I am so not technically savvy. I’m glad I found you guys Eric. I love the way you guys write. As usual, itlloks like I’m the last one.
Good to see some familiar names already among the 18S commentariat.
FYI to everybody, this is thepolishambassador. I also decided to make the move over to 18 Stripes with the rest of the gang.
This feels…right.
Now if I can only find some time to write on occasion
Excited to be here and looking forward to writing some articles!
Congrats on the new digs E! I really think this is going to be a great thing for you, the staff, and the community.
Excelsior and Huzzah!
–Mouth
Wait, you really have a real name? 😀
Is #18SAD a thing yet?
I don’t know what’s better – the determination to continue the After Dark community/subscription plan, or the fact that the acronym now ends in SAD. One seems admirable, the other appropriate. I’ll let you sort out which is which.
#OFSAD?
Sad!
I’m excited to see what happens in the new environment. Congrats Eric, and the rest of the staff!
Question: what do we say instead of “happy to green this comment”? Do I just have to base my entire self-worth on the number of “vote ups” I receive?
Thanks and welcome! Hmm… Good question. Well, the number changes from yellow to green when it counts up, so you could probably still say happy to green it. Or, in keeping with the new environs, maybe you could say “happy to stripe it.” It doesn’t really make sense, but when has that ever stopped us?
Hmm, what should we consider the threshold? We need some sort of system:
5 up-votes: Good
10 up-votes: Great
20 up-votes: ELITE
5 up-votes: Cool
10 up-votes: Mild
20 up-votes: Warm
What about Mild+?
5 up-votes: Mayo
10 up-votes: Sour Cream
20 up-votes: Ranch
25 up-votes: Miracle Whip
I kid.
Beautiful.
I just threw up in my mouth a little.
lol @ the down vote
/clears throat
TESTING
That is all
Congrats on the new site guys
👍
It took me a couple days because my attention wanes during the summer, but I found y’all by stalking FDM. Looking forward to what you’ve got over here.
Do you not stalk anyone else from our staff?
I didn’t even stalk FDM until we found out that the whole staff left TOS yesterday. I had to go and find one of you to follow you back here.
Same here!
I was sad to learn yesterday that not only Eric (which we knew) but the whole staff at OFD left. I didn’t know where I was going to get good ND analysis. I’m very happy to learn about this new site and that most of the same group is together with more freedom. I love the idea of even longer – more in depth – articles. Look forward to the work you guys are doing here!
Welcome back and…
Fire Murtaugh!
Too soon?
The features on the site will take a little get used to (e.g. no subject line to put the “mots”) but I was wondering if there was any way to keep track of the comments read since I’m not very familiar with wordpress. That was handy over at OFD to follow the conversation and to know when it picked back up again.
Re comments read…
That is a big difference, huh? At some point in the future we could make some changes so something like that could be possible. For now, we kind of have to make sure the site is on a solid foundation and that we don’t create shoes so big that we can’t fill them. Once we know where we stand as far as paying the bills and improving the site that’s definitely something on our radar.
I second that it would be a nice feature to have back. Also, I’d like to be able to set a profile pic here without having to sign up for a third party site.
But paying the bills and producing content probably have to come first for y’all.
Makes total sense that not everything would be perfect right away and need to keep first things first (paying bills, etc.). Glad to know you guys have been thinking about it.
This is the feature I would most like to get back as well for what it’s worth. I whitelisted 18S and encourage others to do the same. Good luck getting it all going.
Oh dear lord please figure this out soon, because I’m already getting a bad taste from the new management over there, and the familiarity with the commenting system may end up being the only reason I go back. Dude’s asking people why they think they should run things when they complain about misleading and over-hyping article titles (of which there have been a few) and continual spelling errors (of player names). Seriously, you can’t get your stuff together, and you are taking it out on your readership? That’s helpful.
So let’s get the commenting here fixed so that we can see what has been read and what hasn’t, more than just 3 comments back, and then this battle station will be fully operational!
Yeah, his outburst cracked me up. The criticism was totally valid and even constructive. It seems like every article over there is going to be clickbait…and most of them have polls with very bland questions and meaningless answers. i think it may be my new outlet for schadenfreude.
I was annoyed by the same thing the commenter complained about, but was willing to give it some more time. But the reactiveness of the reply was…just odd, and really off-putting. I don’t want to read clickbait, I’ll take my clicks elsewhere. While I didn’t always agree with things at OFD before, 99% of the time we could disagree and have it be civil, or at least contained. Eric and Co, for the most part, took criticism well–especially when things were spelled incorrectly, etc., it was normally just a “thanks, fixed it.” If they’re now going to get all up in someone’s face for pointing out spelling errors or poor article intros (seriously, I thought Tillery had declared he was no longer playing the way they had that title written), then that’s missing the whole point. I don’t know what they get paid if at all, but if they are getting paid, then there’s an obligation to fix mistakes and try to minimize them.
How many of you guys are NOT familiar with Subway Domer (Josh V)??
For the comments here we were first focused on the minimal amount of nesting comments (since we tend to have a lot of replies & conversations) and we’re using a system that helps with that.
But, new comments is probably going to take priority over nesting comments. I’m assuming most would agree?
I’m not familiar with him and I’m probably alone in that. I did go to his old site and mostly noted the lack of comments for the newer articles on there. In any case, I’m willing to give him time. As far as his outburst is concern, I did think the commentators laid the complaints on a bit thick from the get-go but who could blame them?! Y’all set the bar so high and to have such a good thing changed so unexpectantly to boot…
But as for the commenting tweaks, I say yes to all of it. But as to what is a priority, I leave that to wiser heads.
That’s my two cents. Thanks!
I’m familiar enough with him that I didn’t go to his old site more than once or twice. Looks like things might go that same direction.
Test
Same story for me as some of the others. I wasn’t aware of the site until yesterday when I read on OFD that the entire staff left. After a moment of complete inner turmoil, I made it my mission to find you guys.
Glad you found us!
I had exactly the same experience! Glad I found the right place.
2nd’ed
I am pumped that there is a new home for the writers we have come to know and appreciate. Good luck and glad to have found it!
‘Sup
Sup wit you?
Happy to find where you all landed. I was distressed when I read that everyone from OFD left. I’m excited for you all on this new platform.
Looking forward to seeing y’all’s vision:
[img]https://goo.gl/images/6OYTMN[/img]
P.S. Liking the lack of 30 seconds to edit but y’all gonna have to teach me how to do them gifs.
Thanks!
There you go. GIF files should automatically convert.
Glad to find you guys, but the work internet browser security system doesn’t let me post…anyone else have similar issues?
Might take a little while for us to be “categorized” as a sports/news site by some of the corporate filtering services.
I leave the country for a few weeks and what the hell? Also, I can’t have an apostrophe in my screen name, so I have to get a new one? Sigh…
Got no time for apostrophes around here.
I need a Z button and some form of identifying unread comments.
Also, I probably win “most obvious name change”
Maybe my brain is just leaking out my ears because i just got off work, but the first post of yours i saw here is the one i’m replying to. When i scrolled up to see the one above i realized you were you, but only because i saw a post of yours back on that other site that also started with, “I leave the country for a few weeks and what the hell?” or something very similar.
The problem is likely that i was such a terrible student in Japanese class that i didn’t recognize “monogatari” as a Japanese word.
I’ve spent the last 5 weeks learning to translate classical Japanese texts, and this week we’re working on the Heike Monogatari (Tale of the Heike). For my final, I’ll write the Tale of Prince Kizer in classical Japanese, from his humble origins of saving his clan at the last minute against the upstart Cavalier rebels, to his future exploits against the evil Longhorns and Cardinal clans.
Also, there’s a mechanism to change my name if Zaire wins the QB battle, right?
For Horsfly’s sake i hope that mechanism does exist.
You can’t change your user ID but you can change your display name – hover over the “Howdy, [name]” in the upper-right corner and click Edit My Profile. If, you know, Zaire wins.
Found you! Eric’s last post was sad…like not getting what you want from Santa kind of sad. Then I read that all of the writers left OFD and it was like finding out there really wasn’t a Santa Claus in the first place. Then I browsed Twitter for the first time in awhile and saw Eric’s link to the new site. It was like having a magical train swing by and pick me up on Christmas Eve to whisk me off to the North Pole to prove to me that Santa is real after all.
So say it with me, OF…I mean 18S…”I do believe. I do believe.”
Anyway, I’m fast now, rather than just quick. It could have something to do with the difficulties in setting a password on WordPress and after so many failed log-ins, I decided to start over.
Glad to see all of you still writing. I’ll still be reading and post snide comments. Take your time. Quality over quantity. It’s what made OFD great the first time around.
If you’re open to suggestions, though, how about Eric writes a series on great two quarterback systems throughout college football history.
*blares horn*
Hmm. In my vision the train was a classic steam engine and there was a beautiful snowfall on the ground. But progress is progress and I need a ride. All aboard!
I could have done better.
Choo Choo!
Kelly’s Gyros?
Who?
🙂
Finally found you guys. Please don’t ditch us again!
You’re safe now.
It would be kind of funny if you waited for everyone to finally make it over here and then immediately did a goodbye post
That would be so, so mean.
Finally figured out how to register for this place.
Nice to finally be able to spell Charlie correctly.
Well, had to join the new site. Can’t wait to see what you guys write about!
This has made my night guys.
Free Piano
Have you ever considered about adding a little bit more than just your articles? I mean, what you say is fundamental and everything. However think about if you added some great photos or video clips to give your posts more, “pop”! Your content is excel…