stevegrant

I quote:

Who and where? As I said, interesting poster or not, it does not put them above the rules that are in place for everyone.

If "contravening the quite simple rules in place and ignoring a fairly explicit warning/reminder about libel and the stance that we feel we have to take on it counts as "hitting some sort of raw nerve" then yes, guilty as charged. He'll be back in two weeks. There are many contributors on this site who are either well-respected or interesting (and even occasionally a combination of both ), and many who have been posting on this forum and its predecessors for years, but that does not give them carte blanche to post things that could get them - and, by association and most importantly from a selfish point of view, us as admins - in trouble.

That £4250pa figure is after expenses as well, so you could easily charge more than £350 a month. Any living cost can be included there, such as service charges, buildings and contents insurance, utility bills, probably even a cleaner if you've got one.

Simple reason being that I've not had time to keep it updated recently, mainly as I'm in the process of moving. I'll be trying to fill in the gaps on the news part of the site in the next week or two, and will then be looking for a couple of people to assist me in keeping it updated.

They're still in the database, so if the new version of vbArcade uses the same database tables and columns, the high scores should still be there.

Good point, I'd completely forgotten about it Will try to get it sorted this week, need to check there's a compatible version of it but expect it'll be fine.

Season starts here then?

I think it's probably too early to tell just how bad the situation is there at the moment, particularly taking results on the pitch as the barometer. They've had a tough set of fixtures so far, playing Arsenal, Man City and Man United in their first 5 games, and the sides they've played in Europe are no mugs either. It's very clear that the squad Hodgson has inherited isn't good enough to challenge for the top 4, although I'd say that most of the first-choice starting eleven aren't too bad (and came 2nd only 18 months ago). Wednesday night proved that the second string isn't anywhere near good enough, which leads to its own problems, e.g. squad stagnation, complacency among first-teamers, etc. I also suspect the supposed "hype" over them has been over-egged by the media - I know a few Liverpool fans and they've all said they'd be quite happy to get 6th place this season and try to build from there. Next month could be key in terms of the financial situation, as RBS and Wachovia could effectively take over the club by default, although I think RBS are currently investigating whether they can do this without forcing the club into administration. As Robert Peston wrote on his BBC blog the other day, why would someone pay what Hicks and Gillette are asking for (£450-600m) when in a month's time they might be able to get the club for £280m, with the added bonus that the two Americans are left with nothing?

As graced by such luminaries as Gaby Roslin...

Fair enough - can't say it looks much different to FM10, really, but until I've got one alongside the other I'll give it the benefit of the doubt. Not convinced the social networking stuff will take off, really, but I suppose with the current craze for Twitter and other SM tools, they've got to try and shoehorn it in somehow.

What's new about the TV Match view?

I'm sure there's some sort of competition-related conflict of interest where a chairman of a rival club is allowed full access to a club's books...

The FT has been a paid-for subscription service for years. The model works with that publication because it is specialist information and analysis that may not be readily available elsewhere. The Times' website hits have fallen through the floor as a result of the paywall - I've got vague recollection of reading a report which suggested a 90+% drop - which would suggest that it's not working for them. Unless all other newspapers go down the same route (which I'm pretty certain they won't), they'll have a problem because, for me, there isn't enough exclusive content in The Times to warrant paying for online access when similar content is available for free elsewhere. The BBC are incredibly unlikely to ever make their content paid-for, so there will always be that source, which renders Murdoch's idea fairly irrelevant, IMO. Some people will draw comparisons with the model in place here, but there are clearly massive differences. Firstly, you don't have to pay to access the site at all. In fact, the majority of users don't pay. For most people, three posts per day is enough, so they have that option of using the site in the same way they always have done for free. Obviously as a consequence, they'll have adverts on the site (unless they've got an ad blocker installed), so they are still generating revenue for the site without actually having to pay themselves. Then we come onto the subscribers - there are generally two "types" of subscribers from what I can tell: there are those who subscribe because they want to be able to use all the features that are only available to paid subscribers, and then there are those who subscribe just because they want to contribute towards the continued running of the site. There appear to be a surprising number of people falling into the latter category, based on the number of subscribers who have low post counts. As we explained at the time, the whole reason for switching to the subscription model was to ensure the site remained self-sufficient. Under the previous donations-based structure, it became a law of diminishing returns - after the first wave of donations, there was plenty of money to run the site for about a year, but when we then asked for further donations, we received a much lower sum, which would obviously only keep the site running for a shorter period of time. With donations, I think people are happy to donate initially but feel a bit put out if they're then asked to contribute again a few months later. I seem to remember there was a bit of an issue with someone who donated a fairly significant sum then trying to claim immunity from being banned because they had contributed that much more to the forum than most other people. With the subscriptions model we now have in place, there are two options, it's either free but slightly limited, or a fiver with everything included, which keeps things much easier and settled. To pick up on a couple of other points that have been made on this thread, it does feel as though it's been quieter lately, but then a look at the figures (3746 have logged in in the last month) would suggest otherwise. I guess it's all in comparison to the massive floods of traffic we had with Markus Liebherr's death and then the Pardew sacked/Adkins appointed saga, and clearly it's going to seem quieter compared to those occasions when everyone wants to have their say. Not everyone has something to say on a given topic, obviously. With reference to the lack of news articles on that part of the site, I can only apologise for that. My excuse being that I'm in the process of moving house, and simply haven't had the time to write articles recently - I've not posted much on the forum recently for the same reason. I'll try to plug the gaps in the next week or two, but I'll also be on the lookout for a couple of people who are interested in writing news articles, match reports, etc for the site.

Politician in "saying things to win votes and adopting a different policy when he/she gets into power" shocker.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/football-league-blog/2010/sep/22/championship-already-decided History suggests they're already ****ed in terms of their footballing survival...

Get the iPlayer downloader app, then you can download it and watch it offline.

It'll be on iPlayer, I'd have thought...

Series 8 is out on DVD... http://www.play.com/DVD/DVD/4-/12159741/Spooks-Series-8/Product.html

My favourite line from tonight's episode: "So the country will have to struggle on without pornography and Minesweeper for a few hours? Do it!"

True, but there's usually a surge straight after the final whistle as well.

It's been down all weekend

For those who were on the forum during and immediately after the game yesterday, how did it go? In particular, was it quicker than normal? Did it fully crash (with the "Database Error" message) at all?

I've said no such thing, as you're well aware. If you want to retain your membership, I suggest you watch what you say.

History tells us it doesn't matter whether they're coining in the sales revenue or not, there will always be fundamental problems with the game on release day.