As some of you may know, we have opened a forum that will run in parallel with the blog. Given this announcement, I’d just like to draw people’s attention to some of the reasons a) why I’ve opened a forum and b) why the forum and blog are two separate entities, as well as give a bit of an update on some technical stuff going on with the site at present.

Difference between the blog and the forum

It might make sense to clarify the subtle difference between the blog and the forum. In order to illustrate, check out the list below:

Do you want to comment on an existing blog post, or a topic that has arisen from comment discussion? Feel free to use the blog comments.
Do you want to talk about something totally different to the blog post (a totally different topic, or a totally different sport)? Please use the forum.

Don’t worry – I am not going to be beating people over the head with a stick for putting things in the wrong place, but I do want to make the reading experience more consistent, and part of this involves directing people to use this option or that either in the forum, or by using reply vs a standard blog comment. I am aware that some of it may be confusing, so there’s not going to be strict policing, but hopefully it should assist the flow of conversation for all parties.

New server

Perhaps I should have had more faith and put it on a bigger platform to start with, but it seems I am going to need to upgrade the capacity of the server this site is running on. We are currently taking around 1000-1500 views a day now (which is frankly amazing given we only launched 3 weeks ago), so in order to handle all the traffic, we will be migrating to a new AWS based server. What this means for everyone behind the jargon is that we may have a period of downtime of around 24-72 hours in the future, but this will be notified ahead of schedule. In the meantime, I apologise for any speed issues that may occur during times of heavy usage. Don’t worry – we’ll get off this rickety ship soon enough m’lad.

Mobile site

If you haven’t tried it already, you are able to access a touch based version of this site via iPhone, Android phones, and touch screen Blackberry devices. The site may also work on other devices (such as Windows Phone) but I haven’t had chance to try it on them yet. If you do have a mobile device and it works (or if it doesn’t), then if you can leave a comment saying which device you have (and if it works or not) below, I would be most grateful.

Contributors

We’ve already had three people besides myself write articles for the blog (as well as another person who wants to help out), and I am keen to find more contributors. So if you feel strongly about an issue (either pro- or anti- the current situation), then please drop me a line via the “Contact” option at the bottom of the page.

Other stuff to come

I’m sure some of you are aware that this isn’t anywhere near the finished article as a site yet, and we have a lot more to come (including some possible big surprises), so rest assured I will be doing my best to develop the site further as time goes on, both technically and functionally. I’ve got a small list of things like font colours to change, but anything else you want to mention please feel free either below, in the forum, or privately via the contact options at the bottom.

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