This Site
By The Site Editors
April 22 2005
It’s been an interesting few weeks on the site. We’ve passed 10,000 hits (they’re page views, in case you’re wondering) in a day for the first time in the site‘s history, and we’ve had our best individual day for hits ever (17,734 on 31st March).
We’ve also had to make the message board log-in only because, it would be fair to say, our success has attracted new and “interesting” visitors.
So, for all of the newcomers, and for all of the regulars, the editorial team have decided to give everyone a bit of background to us, the site, and various other things.
The site has been here since April 2002, first run by Ridley, taken up by Mally (who also ran the Leeds site at the same time as this one for a while), and then from last summer onwards, an editorial collective featuring Mark H, Monkey1, Touchline, Sheeny and Psycho. And we'll happily admit this - if it wasn't for Ridley and Mally, there wouldn't be a site today. We're only continuing what they started.
We're not the biggest rugby site on Sport Network - that’s the Saints site, but then it’s been about for nearly nine years - and we may not necessarily be the best, but we are proud of what we do. And we are growing - when we took over, we were getting just over 70,000 hits per month, but in the last three months, we’ve gone over 180,000 twice, and there’s just a chance we might reach 200,000 this month. Which, for us, would be massive.
Contrary to what you may think, we don't get paid, nor do we wish to. We're providing a service for the love of the club and the love of rugby. We’ve all got jobs, so any work we put into the site is on a part-time basis. We’ve all got different views of the best way forward for the club, so don’t think that we agree about everything all the time - we’re all very opinionated, and so should we be, as should you be. That’s what helps make a good website.
All contributions and suggestions for the site are most welcome. You can either raise ideas on the message board, or send them (and any stories you might want to see on the site to markhazell270500@aol.com, and we’ll do the necessary. You don’t need any HTML skills to put a story in - if you can type, that’s the only skill you need. We’ll even correct the spelling if you want! Remember, the site is only as good as the stories that we can put on it. In the summer months especially, we're always looking for stories to put up, so if you want (for example) to do a review of your season, or profiles of any of the players we don't have profiles for, feel free.
Photos are also welcome - we’ve been lucky this season in that we’ve got a growing number of people taking excellent pictures and wanting to share them with us, as you can see if you look at the “Gallery 2004/05” and “The Tait Gallery” on the left hand sidebar. If you think you can contribute, again, feel free.
The message board is also very important to us. There, you can share your opinions on the Falcons and general rugby matters with other like-minded souls. As mentioned earlier, we’ve had to go to log-in only on the message board this week, because if you look at the message board header, it says:-
“…please keep it clean and non abusive, respect the other users of this board! While the editors of this site monitor the board, they are not responsible for the content of the postings. Any concerns, complaints etc... should be emailed to Sportnetwork. If you want to spam here, then please go elsewhere - any spamming will be deleted.”
We are strict on this - foul language and abuse will not be tolerated - and if you’re unsure whether something is suitable, think of being a parent. If you wouldn’t let your children see it, then don’t post it here, because that’s the general rule that we use.
To log-in as new user, select a user name. The only restriction on this (again apart from bad language) is whether or not it’s used elsewhere on Sport Network. Next, select a password that you’ll remember. Then, you’re away! You can log in using that name and password on any PC, and join in the fun (or the post mortems after a defeat). Another advantage of logging in is that if you decide that you’ve missed something just after you’ve hit the “Post” button, you can edit your post as well.
That’s just about it. If you’ve got any questions, we’re here. We don’t bite (although we are partial to the odd pint). And finally, welcome to all of the newcomers that we’ve picked up in recent months, and thank you to all of the regulars for sticking with us. We’ll do our best to ensure you keep coming back.