Quote Originally Posted by ed_Scottishfitba1 View Post
Hi, I hope you are well.

I don’t intend to respond point by point raised as many overlap. I will try to cover all the main points but forgive me if I miss something. Apologies for the delay in responding but I was dealing with pictures from the Australian Grand Prix as I have many interests that drag me away from the site.

Brief history; the site was set up to cover football as it is played in or affects Scotland. The only team the site truly supports is Scotland. Views are welcomed from fans of any team.

I have never written or posted anything against any team. I have tried to post facts, whether disputed or not, and kept my personal opinions on all the issues raised to myself. I am happy for anybody to find anything that suggests I have forgotten something since 1999 when I took over running the site first on Rivals and currently on Footymad. I have posted at least one story per day apart from perhaps 15 in all that time. All holidays and Christmas still see me posting something.

Over the last 18 years I have been accused of being a supporter of or biased towards most teams in the Scottish Premiership. It took posters a number of years to figure out I supported Hibs.

Neither I nor the site has anything against any team. I will jus repeat that. Neither I nor the site has anything against any team. It would be pointless as the whole idea of the site is to encourage debate among football fans. To alienate any club would stifle debate as many views are required to allow people to form opinions. Nobody is right all the time and similarly nobody is wrong all the time. Most people recognise that people are contradictory from time to time as their views may have been affected by something other than that which appears on the board. I am sure we could all find things we would rather not have posted but it must have felt OK the time.

There are two significantly large clubs in Scotland based in Scotland. Both have many fans site which are available if you are interested in hearing only how great they are. Both have histories which record their achievements. I understand, as I don’t visit them, that they are very popular and often have something to say about their rivals. Taking into account how strong feelings can be about your rivals I am sure there will be less than complimentary posts from time to time. The admins of those sites deal with things as they see fit.

Over the last 18 years many names have come and gone. As I have said many times, I rarely pay attention to who posts what so do not have an idea of which teams have been backed or not as the case may be. I try not to interfere in threads as I have other ways of getting things said – the articles I post. I have posted a number of times that posters should be thick skinned to deal with the inevitable comment that appears as if an attack on their club or themselves. I have asked posters to deal with slagging in a humorous way as you would in a pub. I have also asked that posters do not attack partners of posters as they do not have access to reply. I presume that most posters are of the grown up variety and have been involved on face to face discussions where they hear things they do not agree with. I doubt many such discussions result in blaming the owner of the bar, club, company where the discussion took place. However, you are free to do so. I may not agree with you but I agree that you should be free to make your comments. I could have binned your post as soon as I saw it. But what would be the fun in that? Posts hopefully start debate. And so we get back to the main reason for the site.

You suggest that my approach to allowing posters a degree of freedom is in the hope of lots of hits. You would not be the first to suggest this. You would also not be the first to be wrong. This site costs me money to run and always has. I do not do this for the money. I do not think any site admin/owner of any fan site does. The days of the idea net millionaires died within two years of the internet being established with many people seeing how easy it is to set up a site and try to make money. I am sure some research has been done somewhere the statistics on how many site have been born and died over the years. A small subset of that will be those sites which made money. I think the popular social media site are still trying to make a profit and their worth if judged by investors willing to inject money in the hope that their pockets are deep enough to cover losses until the day where the balance sheet turns from red to black.

You will be aware of the concept of investing in a loss making business with the aim of turning the corner I am sure.

There is no way any site can keep everybody happy especially one that deals with Scottish football with the century old rivalries it has to deal with. I have never visited the break away site but I did warn then that running a board was not as easy as they thought. Their original stance was no bar on swearing, no bans, freedom for all. I understand that that stance has had to be amended with experience.

You are right that I do not feel comfortable when looking in the mirror but I never have and age has not been helpful.

I hope you have a good weekend.

Pish!