1. The lenience with the comments. As I've said before, a lot of the comments that remain I would actually delete if it were my blog. Calling someone a moron, for example, should not be on.
2. More importantly, I really hate the recent policy/software change of putting things below the fold. Extremely annoying; I could name at least one blog I would read daily if it didn't do that.
3. If that's technically possible, a preview function for comments would be great.
Todd
· 1 year ago
keep up the good work. its one of 3-4 sites i check daily. ive seen epltalk go from a podcast, message board, chat with video, blog and everything in between. i have to say it currently fulfills my needs and i enjoy it. but the professionalism and personality of the gaffer makes it a pleasure. some bloggers rely on controversy to be exciting...but i am not one of those people who enjoys reading things to get upset.
i think the way things are now is probably the best. not too much but enough. sure some more podcasts would be great but only when they are actually worth while...not just for the sake of it.
Dave M
· 1 year ago
Maybe it's just me, but at least once a week, I try to click on a story and get the "Easy Tiger - this is a 404 page" error message. This week, for example, I can't get to the "White Hart Lane May Be Extinct" article.
The article (or most of it) is still readable from your Home page, but the error keeps you from accessing (and thus posting comments to) that particular article.
Also... and this could be a related problem... occasionally when I'm on the page for a particular article, and I click on the name of the previous article to access that page, I get jumped out of sequence to a very old (and unrelated) article.
These bugs might be obvious fixes to those of you that use software to organize blog sites, but I'm mentioning it anyway - a very small item to nitpick about in view of the mountain of good content and conversation I find here.
Also, if you're opening a ton of sister blog sites, hopefully you'll have a common gateway - because otherwise I'll just keep coming here and not think about the others. Clearly, I'm just a moron (oops - please don't censor me!).
Alex Hleb
· 1 year ago
how about less posts about how the league should change. stop trying to americanize it with suggesting playoffs or a salary cap. less extreme conservatism as practiced by blogger michael please. he can write but he needs to consider a more neutral stance. instead of arguing for one thing, he should write about both arguments to let the user decide. he is too personal for a site that tries to cater to the masses.
damir-
· 1 year ago
Hey, I've been around here, commenting, watching, listening, supporting since the start of the last season, and I love all of it. - I used to go by the name "dragonki2012". :D
Recent changes, I believe aren't the way to go, such as: 1. I like the preview the article option, BUT and I HATE this, when you decide you want to read more when you click the option it opens the article on a new page... - Can you make it when you click the expand button(to continue reading) that it expands on the same page, thanks.
2. I don't really have a problem with any of the bloggers, except that I agree with Alex Hleb when he talks about Michael. He offers very controversial points of view and it's good for argument but it is kinda biased...
3. Maybe the option to respond to other peoples comments...?
4. It'd be cool to see a more popular forum.
5. I'm not a big fan of the recent addition or invasion of the advertisement on the website.
Michael
· 1 year ago
Damir,
Biased towards whom? Against whom?
Of course the things I write are debateable and have been controversial at times, but my goal isn't to write from a strictly neutral point of view about a topic or the news or whatever. If you want to find neutrality, there's plenty of media outlets like newspaper sites, ESPN, Fox Soccer, BBC, etc; for me, the point of writing is to present the readers with my point of view and opinion and let the audience agree or disagree.
wanderer_abroad
· 1 year ago
The wanderer's back! Yes i think its about time that i put my penny in the hat. I would first like to say thankyou to the Gaffer and all the bloggers for making EPL Talk a great website for all us footie fanatics. Over all I have been pleased with the articles, yet, in recent months some of the articles have taken a slightly sensationalist tone. I disagree with the others that it is Michael who does this, but instead I think some of the Gaffer's posts have been slightly over the top. I mean this in the best way Gaffer, and you have gotten better over the last few months, but sometimes you criticize some players too harshly and praise others too highly. I refer back to a month or so ago when you commented that a Nani performance was "disgraceful". This was certainly over the top as no player deserves to be called a disgrace if he hasn't done anything controversial or shameful. Also your continuous Ballack bashing a few months ago certainly annoyed me, especially considering he had only come back from a long term injury. Apart from that I have no complaints at all about EPL Talk and hope everyone continues the good work into next season.
C'mon Wanderers in the League 2 Playoffs!!!
Chad Looker
· 1 year ago
I've been reading since the beginning and I'm glad EPL Talk is still around.
1. I don't like how now the blog posts go below the fold.
2. I do like the additional bloggers you have on the site. It's more interesting.
3. Some of the article are too similar to the news articles I'd read. If I come to the blog, I probably already know who won this or that game, etc. I come to the blog to supplement the straightforward news articles I get from other football sites. In other words, don't simply report what we already know.
jm
· 1 year ago
Alex,
I disagree on two counts.
One, is that I do not think there is any problem with argumentative pieces. Michael is trying out ideas, thinking through things. He is not writing a textbook, he is looking for thoughtful feedback on thoughtful ideas. Why should he strive for faux neutrality? I'd rather a solid and well argued, but controversial, piece rather than a bit of surface gloss on the sides of an issue.
Second, is that there is nothing intrinsically wrong with Americanization. Now surely some aspects of British sport ought to be held on to due to tradition. Tradition is valuable and important, no doubt about it. But if there is something wrong with the proposals Michael has offered which are "American" (playoffs, all-star games), then the problems are with the proposals themselves. Having roots in American sport does not therefore mean that the proposal is inadequate.
Michael ought to continue to argue for and suggest ideas he believes in. And if we, the audience, disagree, then we can offer reasons for why his views might be mistaken.
Todd
· 1 year ago
on your last point jm...or we can tune it out and go someplace else
damir-
· 1 year ago
I just sense a few licks of biasism against Arsenal in general. Sure, this isn't a gunners blog but it's kind of hard to find someone saying a good thing about them but I find myself flipping through 5-6 blogs about how Ronaldo is the best...
I agree with Chad_looker, I already know how the game went and the scores and etc, I'd just like to see and read someone talking about them and the small detail that you don't notice in games and that the media won't talk about.
Which brings me to my next point, Nani. So why are you against people calling him a disgrace? Didn't he just head butt a guy the other day? I think so. Or maybe that was all fair play? Who knows... Not the first United Portages player to do that this season, it's all class though.
Back to improving the site....
Sanjay
· 1 year ago
The new site is good, its almost like a portal for football with opinion, shop,podcast etc. As far as suggestions, I'm not a big fan of the the recent change where things are put after the fold, I just like the whole article to be there.
Utd fan
· 1 year ago
I know it's 'EPLTalk', but I'd like to see a little more information on the CCC. I get to see nearly every Premier League game, but very few Championship games...I want to know what the analysis of the teams on the way up is.
wanderer_abroad
· 1 year ago
damir, i disagree with calling Nani a disgrace when he doesn't warrant it. I specifically remember him being average in that game and far from the worst player on the pitch. Does losing pocession a few times deserve a 'disgrace' tag? No, but when he pulls stunts like he did on saturday he deserves to be called a disgrace, but not for a bad game.
kat kid
· 1 year ago
1. Love the site. 2. MORE POSTS! 3. MORE RUMORS! 4. MORE RE-CAPS OF GAMES! (many of us are cheap and rely on the absolutely awful mbm's/recaps/gamecasts/footytube's to see stuff 5. Please Christ all mighty update ChampionsLeagueTalk more 6. More tactical discussions/analysis: This is the biggest thing lacking throughout the entire world of soccer/football coverage. It is mind boggling as it seems as though the vast majority of soccer/football fans are interested enough in tactics-focused recaps and discussions of players formations and match-ups as well as styles of teams and various strategies relative successes in the tables (this would extend to La Liga/Serie A/Champion's League etc.), yet very few outlets even the "serious" and "important" ones put much of any sort of effort in to covering this. 7. More discussion of Euro 2008/Olympics (I assume there will be once they kick off) 8. More off-season/preview in-depth evaluations/discussions of entire first-team/substitute rosters highlighting key players/impact players/big transfers/players that don't belong or playing out of position/players that are too old or not premier league quality. 9. MORE CONTENT! 10. Love the football ground stuff, love the controversial discussions of innovations, love the shirt reveals, love "I'm on Setanta Sports", love the blog, love the podcasts.
kat kid
· 1 year ago
Also, could you cover Celtic? somewhere? just like on occasion?
Dave M
· 1 year ago
...possibly during the silly summer transfer season, a recap of transfer rumours with links to the news sources.
Django
· 1 year ago
I really enjoy the site and the articles...As a poor fan that doesn't have cable TV, though, I could do without all the contracts with the different networks. I do realize, though, that others actually have enough money to have internet AND cable, so no worries. I agree that some of the comment moderation could be better, hell, I've probably posted a few things that should be deleted. I guess I would just like to see less complaining on the whole (as I said, I've probably done it too); "you're biased against xxxxxx and don't know anything because you're American." If anything, I get the sense that from the commenters there is a bias towards American fans and views--if it's American, it's bad. What gives?
Lonnie
· 1 year ago
KatKid -- I hear what you're saying about ChampionsLeagueTalk. With more bloggers coming on board at EPL Talk, I'll become a reduced presence here as I plan to focus more of my time on the Champions League site.
All Comments
1. The lenience with the comments. As I've said before, a lot of the comments that remain I would actually delete if it were my blog. Calling someone a moron, for example, should not be on.
2. More importantly, I really hate the recent policy/software change of putting things below the fold. Extremely annoying; I could name at least one blog I would read daily if it didn't do that.
3. If that's technically possible, a preview function for comments would be great.
i think the way things are now is probably the best. not too much but enough. sure some more podcasts would be great but only when they are actually worth while...not just for the sake of it.
The article (or most of it) is still readable from your Home page, but the error keeps you from accessing (and thus posting comments to) that particular article.
Also... and this could be a related problem... occasionally when I'm on the page for a particular article, and I click on the name of the previous article to access that page, I get jumped out of sequence to a very old (and unrelated) article.
These bugs might be obvious fixes to those of you that use software to organize blog sites, but I'm mentioning it anyway - a very small item to nitpick about in view of the mountain of good content and conversation I find here.
Also, if you're opening a ton of sister blog sites, hopefully you'll have a common gateway - because otherwise I'll just keep coming here and not think about the others. Clearly, I'm just a moron (oops - please don't censor me!).
I've been around here, commenting, watching, listening, supporting since the start of the last season, and I love all of it.
- I used to go by the name "dragonki2012".
:D
Recent changes, I believe aren't the way to go, such as:
1. I like the preview the article option, BUT and I HATE this, when you decide you want to read more when you click the option it opens the article on a new page...
- Can you make it when you click the expand button(to continue reading) that it expands on the same page, thanks.
2. I don't really have a problem with any of the bloggers, except that I agree with Alex Hleb when he talks about Michael. He offers very controversial points of view and it's good for argument but it is kinda biased...
3. Maybe the option to respond to other peoples comments...?
4. It'd be cool to see a more popular forum.
5. I'm not a big fan of the recent addition or invasion of the advertisement on the website.
Biased towards whom? Against whom?
Of course the things I write are debateable and have been controversial at times, but my goal isn't to write from a strictly neutral point of view about a topic or the news or whatever. If you want to find neutrality, there's plenty of media outlets like newspaper sites, ESPN, Fox Soccer, BBC, etc; for me, the point of writing is to present the readers with my point of view and opinion and let the audience agree or disagree.
I would first like to say thankyou to the Gaffer and all the bloggers for making EPL Talk a great website for all us footie fanatics. Over all I have been pleased with the articles, yet, in recent months some of the articles have taken a slightly sensationalist tone. I disagree with the others that it is Michael who does this, but instead I think some of the Gaffer's posts have been slightly over the top. I mean this in the best way Gaffer, and you have gotten better over the last few months, but sometimes you criticize some players too harshly and praise others too highly. I refer back to a month or so ago when you commented that a Nani performance was "disgraceful". This was certainly over the top as no player deserves to be called a disgrace if he hasn't done anything controversial or shameful. Also your continuous Ballack bashing a few months ago certainly annoyed me, especially considering he had only come back from a long term injury.
Apart from that I have no complaints at all about EPL Talk and hope everyone continues the good work into next season.
C'mon Wanderers in the League 2 Playoffs!!!
1. I don't like how now the blog posts go below the fold.
2. I do like the additional bloggers you have on the site. It's more interesting.
3. Some of the article are too similar to the news articles I'd read. If I come to the blog, I probably already know who won this or that game, etc. I come to the blog to supplement the straightforward news articles I get from other football sites. In other words, don't simply report what we already know.
I disagree on two counts.
One, is that I do not think there is any problem with argumentative pieces. Michael is trying out ideas, thinking through things. He is not writing a textbook, he is looking for thoughtful feedback on thoughtful ideas. Why should he strive for faux neutrality? I'd rather a solid and well argued, but controversial, piece rather than a bit of surface gloss on the sides of an issue.
Second, is that there is nothing intrinsically wrong with Americanization. Now surely some aspects of British sport ought to be held on to due to tradition. Tradition is valuable and important, no doubt about it. But if there is something wrong with the proposals Michael has offered which are "American" (playoffs, all-star games), then the problems are with the proposals themselves. Having roots in American sport does not therefore mean that the proposal is inadequate.
Michael ought to continue to argue for and suggest ideas he believes in. And if we, the audience, disagree, then we can offer reasons for why his views might be mistaken.
I agree with Chad_looker,
I already know how the game went and the scores and etc, I'd just like to see and read someone talking about them and the small detail that you don't notice in games and that the media won't talk about.
Which brings me to my next point, Nani. So why are you against people calling him a disgrace? Didn't he just head butt a guy the other day? I think so. Or maybe that was all fair play? Who knows... Not the first United Portages player to do that this season, it's all class though.
Back to improving the site....
2. MORE POSTS!
3. MORE RUMORS!
4. MORE RE-CAPS OF GAMES! (many of us are cheap and rely on the absolutely awful mbm's/recaps/gamecasts/footytube's to see stuff
5. Please Christ all mighty update ChampionsLeagueTalk more
6. More tactical discussions/analysis: This is the biggest thing lacking throughout the entire world of soccer/football coverage. It is mind boggling as it seems as though the vast majority of soccer/football fans are interested enough in tactics-focused recaps and discussions of players formations and match-ups as well as styles of teams and various strategies relative successes in the tables (this would extend to La Liga/Serie A/Champion's League etc.), yet very few outlets even the "serious" and "important" ones put much of any sort of effort in to covering this.
7. More discussion of Euro 2008/Olympics (I assume there will be once they kick off)
8. More off-season/preview in-depth evaluations/discussions of entire first-team/substitute rosters highlighting key players/impact players/big transfers/players that don't belong or playing out of position/players that are too old or not premier league quality.
9. MORE CONTENT!
10. Love the football ground stuff, love the controversial discussions of innovations, love the shirt reveals, love "I'm on Setanta Sports", love the blog, love the podcasts.