My name is Tonya, and I'm an MVP Contributor at Sidelines

, a San Francisco-based startup. I'm a pretty active redditor, and the post that you made in /r/Fantasy about Tom Bombadil caught my eye because it was a very well-written and insightful comment. You made some really great points about the importance of authorial context. That made me want to reach out to you.

Our goal at Sidelines is to be the premier place online for articulate, smart people to discuss and debate their favorite topics with others. However, Sidelines is a community of elite contributors – we limit our membership to those who can debate controversial topics in an intelligent, open-minded way. However, the beauty of Sidelines is that you can contribute what you want, when you have the time. We also understand that our contributors have busy lives. We don’t have quotas, deadlines, or assigned topics. You’re not limited to writing for one community. As long as you have something interesting or informative to say, we want to hear it!

Another benefit to limited membership is that there are no trolls hiding behind different throwaways, waiting to make your life miserable. No idiotic arguments between commenters screaming at each other in all caps. No one gets downvoted into oblivion for having an unpopular opinion. The editors are very active, and any disputes or inflammatory behavior that gets out of hand is handled quickly and fairly. In my whole time at Sidelines (one year last month!) I've only seen two such instances where this was necessary.

We've got communities covering gaming

, lifestyle

, sports

, parenting

, and entertainment

. Because Sidelines is still growing, our communities are small. What that means is that you have the opportunity to get to know other contributors and form relationships. You can rise through the ranks more quickly, and your voice won't get lost in the crowd. We're currently focused on improving and expanding our base of Entertainment contributors. Your posts on reddit are extremely well-written and you seem like you'd be a great fit for Sidelines.

Being a Sidelines contributor comes with a ton of great perks – for example, your Sidelines posts get automatically distributed to millions of other parents, gamers, and entertainment junkies through our network of partner sites.

Additionally, we have a Rep system on the platform which directly rewards you for your contributions. As you level up and compete in our many fun debates

, seminars

, challenges, and series, you have the opportunity to get rewarded with memberships to Netflix, Hulu, Steam, and other sites.

Sidelines also offers many career development opportunities to our top contributors. We have weekly office hours for writing help with our editors, regular Sidelines writing workshops on topics like ledes, citation and evidence, and submitting to journals and magazines, and an intensive writing program called the Sidelines Academy. We have long-form magazine sites for Travel, Food, Fashion, and Parenting

, TV, Film, Music, and Gaming

, and Sports

. As you gain rep, you unlock new opportunities to participate in some of our paid campaigns for big companies like Amazon and Disney, and currently Com2US. In addition, every single one of our editors, managers, staff writers, and MVPs got their start as a contributor.

TL;DR: Sidelines is super fun, and it would be great to have you join us. We only have a few contributor positions open right now, and I expect them to get filled pretty soon, so get back to me as soon as possible either by responding to this PM or by shooting me an email at [email protected] hope to hear back from you soon!

Tonya Smith

MVP/Senior Analyst

Sidelines