Going back to basics

[Ian_W]

Hi,

 

Today I have made some tough decisions as to the future of this site.

 

The site celebrates it's 10th anniversary in August and has gone through many changes over that period of time.

 

I have never been afraid to try things, but equally willing to revert if those ideas did not work.

 

As a result I have made some changes to essentially put this site back to concentrating on non league football. As a result several forums have now gone. These forums were never heavily used.

 

Part of these changes has meant the creation of a new forum - http://www.fansfocus...on-league-chat/ for chatting about non league football in general. This forum will span all of non league football from grassroots to conference. It is however perfectly acceptable to talk about higher level football in this forum (World Cup, England, Premiership etc.) if these are topics you wish to chat about. As a result any topics that are not relevant to a particular club or league will be moved here.

 

I am also proposing one other major change, but for that I would like your say.

 

I own various domain names - amongst them are our former names of nonleague.com / nonleague.co.uk - my proposal is simply that we revert the name of the site to nonleague.com - which in my view more accurately describes the aims of the site now.

 

I therefore invite you to vote on this. It is an open vote and I will take all votes and comments into consideration.

 

There are advantages and disadvantages to both names - but at the end of the day I would rather use the name that you felt was best.

 

Equally if you think this is all a bad move - let me know.

 

Thanks,

 

Ian

[Grounhopper Mark.]

This forum will span all of non league football from grassroots to conference. It is however perfectly acceptable to talk about higher level football in this forum (World Cup, England, Premiership etc.) if these are topics you wish to chat about. As a result any topics that are not relevant to a particular club or league will be moved here.

 

Thanks,

 

Ian

 

Ian,

 

Using this below purely as an example....

Coachie started an interesting thread about artificial pitches on the ESL forum, intended for the ESL community... as this is a general thread rather than an ESL thread does this mean.. it will be moved to the above general forum.... or can ESL posts like this stay within this tight community... would be interested in your reply.. personally i would like to see that particular thread stay on the ESL board.

 

If i have got the wrong end of the stick, i apologize.

Thanks, WA WTFC

Edited January 10, 2010 by WA WTFC

[Ian_W]

Hi,

 

There will always be threads that are better suited to a league. These will stay in the league forum. If a thread then evolves and would be better discussed on a wider level it will be moved with a link provided. It then opens it up to a wider audience.

 

It is a fine balance, but hopefully one that will be easier to handle concentrating on nonleague football.

 

If a thread is say talking about the restructuring of non-league football, this is better in the new forum as more people will put their points of view towards it.

[BlueGate Alan]

Nonleague.com sounds a great name to me Ian, thanks for all your hard work and I am sure I am not alone in saying you do a great job for us non league fans. On our forum we do have some people who put the odd youtube video on, for other Gsate fans to enjoy. Should these be moved too?

[Ian_W]

Thank you for your comments - http://www.nonleague.com , http://www.nonleague.co.uk and various other nonleague domains all point here anyway - it is more a case of whether to rebrand.

 

Individual domains such as http://ssmfl.com http://essexsenior.com http://zamarettoleague.com http://isthmian.com all go directly to the respective leagues and will continue to do so. I think we have something like 30+ domains that forward here

 

 

 

Re the videos - Your choice If you feel they will get a wider audience use the new forum. If you feel it is more apt solely to your fans then keep it on your forum.

 

A typical example was the Rocky Baptist miss - this was probably posted half a dozen times in various threads - it would have been much better in one thread for everyone to enjoy. Another good example was the tragic loss of the Heybridge Swifts player - rather than it being on 2 or 3 club forums it would have been better in one thread again.

 

This allows people who do not follow one of the teams that have forums here to join in. After all it is these people that non league clubs would like to attract.

 

 

BTW - when you add youtube videos use the icon above and enter the url of the youtube video - or many other types of media for that matter.

 

It will then display the video inline without the user having to visit another site.

[Jenko]

Hi Ian

 

I've noticed since the major change a few months back that the site seems to be used less than before by many users.

 

I and many others preferred the previous layout. Anyway we could have a option to view the site as it was before or as it is now?

 

As for the name of the site, for nostalgic reasons I prefer Fansfocus.comThanks for all your hard work on the site as always.

 

Jenko

[Ian_W]

Thanks for your comments I think this is typical of many forums - not just ours - however we are now starting to see a pick up of traffic and by returning to our roots of non-league football only I hope some will return.

 

The site actually used to called Non League UK - and used the domain of NonLeague.com - before that it was Isthmian.Com and started life as belowsealevel.

 

As previously mentioned, we had to change software for operational reasons - it is from a different software company.

 

Anyway we could have a option to view the site as it was before or as it is now?

Sorry, but it is not possible to have the same skin as before as it is very different (lot more features now & many more to come) - but not sure what you mean by 'or as it is now'?

I am not sure which skin you are using - but our main skin is 'Clean Cut' - when we run an upgrade later this month we will be removing several skins as they need updating. You can change your skin via the drop down in the footer area (next to the language option).

When the software company that we used before releases their new software it will also be very different due to a change of ownership - so whatever route I had chosen would have resulted in major change. Incidentally 7 years ago when we also changed software we got moaned at We have to keep up to date with software otherwise a) we run the risk of being left with insecure software and not being able to introduce new features.

BTW - I have no plans to alter the software in the next couple of years

[Jenko]

Thanks for that Ian. I understand now the reasons for the change and see why it was necessary.

 

First time I have used the site in a while and notice it has got quicker, which is a big help.

 

Thanks again

 

Jenko

[Ian_W]

No problems, I certainly do not make changes for changes sake It creates too much work LOL

[Woody SUFC]

Doesnt make a blind bit of difference to me and i am assuming a vast number of people. Save yourself the work