Fansided is/was another ridiculous site for made up nonsense. It's what Bleacher Report used to be (when we used to all say, "Bleacher Report, lol". The articles are/were written by unpaid fans seeking their 15 minutes of internet fame. The articles are absolutely not fact checked, or even proofread. Of course, that's how Bleacher Report started out, but they were bought by Turner Sports for $170 million in 2012 and are now a legitimate site with paid contributors. Which, I believe, has led to the proliferation of "content farm" web sites seeking to cash n in the same way Bleacher Report did. Here's some quotes from wikipedia about the early days of Bleacher Report: "Early criticism of Bleacher Report stemmed from the network's initial commitment to an open publishing model. Such critiques cited the fact that all registered users on the website were permitted to publish articles on the site, arguing that Bleacher Reports policy resulted in a glut of low-quality content, which made it difficult for the network's readers to find credible coverage of their favorite teams and sports.[22] It was also argued that the model tarnished the reputation of every writer associated with the Bleacher Report brand, which made it difficult for the network's more talented contributors to build loyal audiences,[23] and that it empowered unqualified writers without editorial oversight, which compromised the prestige and credibility of the sportswriting profession.[24] SB Nation Senior MMA editor Luke Thomas described it as the "Walmart of Journalism" and it's MMA coverage "toothless amateur coverage".[25] Since abandoning the content farm model in 2010, Bleacher Report has been the subject of continued criticism for its exploitation of unpaid contributors, its blanket policy prohibiting writers from breaking their own news, and its high-volume production of low-quality, search-optimized slideshow content.[26][27] These critiques found their strongest voice to date in an October 2012 SF Weekly article, in which tech columnist and entrepreneur Vivek Wadhwa was quoted accusing Bleacher Report of "dumbing down of the web" with "custom-manufactured garbage."[27] In December 2012, a lampoon article in The Onion played on the same themes.[28] In July 2014, Deadspin published a lengthy narrative written by Tom Schreier - a former Bleacher Report featured columnist.[29] Detailing his journey from hopeful intern to "just one more drone pumping content to get clicked on," in three years, Schreier "wrote over 500 articles, generated nearly three million page views, and received $200 for [his] services."[30]" Fansided was bought by Time. Inc, earlier this year, following in the Beacher Report model, but their content still sucks. Plus a lot of their articles are linked by legitimate web sites like basketball-reference. Those are probably paid links to help increase their audience and lend an air of credibility to their enterprise. Unfortunately, it's not always obvious that the links lead to shitty, made up bullshit generated by Fansided contributors. Based on the wildly variable quality of their articles, they appear to use a combination of paid writers and unpaid (or grossly underpaid) wannabees. They hide behind a bunch of other domain names (like All U Can Heat, The Smoking Cuban, Rip City Project, etc. over 300 of them in all). You also can't find anything about Fansided on Wikipedia. A Wikipedia search for Fansided redirects you to the Time, Inc. entry, but the only mentions of Fansided are about their acquisition by Time, Inc. It doesn't seem like they are too proud of their new step child. BNM
