Right CM Frenzy have today published an article… erm well… slagging this site off and I’m going to reply to personally and in depth, because I haven’t a clue where the author’s coming from and I want to set things straight.

Firstly here’s a quote from CM Frenzy:

Granted, this isn’t our speciality and in fact i think this is the first post on CMFrenzy.com of this nature. Anyhow, i’ve been browsing Football Manager Portal past few weeks and the amount of blogs that seem to get linked and it had me wondering…

I’ve been impressed by what the FM portal does (so much that ive actually put a link up on the main site), it allows fans to browse an abundance of links and for them to decide which link is the best one. Despite its somewhat shoddy layout which isn’t exactly too user-friendly it also has a blog. This brings me to my next point.

Yes I know the layout is shoddy, the new site has been in development for a long time etc etc if you’ve been reading it for a while you would know this and you would know that I’m a n00b when it comes to coding hence why it’s taking so long.

In the past few weeks i have only seen endless **** of other blog sites slagging each other off. So lets go to my first point, about the FM Portal blog not linking to anything other than blogs:

If you create a blog purely to advertise great links around the FM community then why haven’t you? It seems that the only material they seem to link to is that from Throw-In. There are so many new graphics coming out everyday on a wide range of sites, such as; fmunderground.net, which seems to be neglected. Not to mention guides and other files. Instead the admin seems to be more than happy to plug crap blogs whose only purpose is to have 15 minutes of “fame”. Your “FM Community Digest” would benefit a whole lot more if you actually showed its readers some useful links rather than childish wars going on among the FM Community.

I do advertise all the links from around the community so I don’t know where that first comment is coming from. I rarely link to Throw In as it rarely updates, so why on earth you’ve got that impression I don’t know.

I’ve said time and again that I don’t have an interest in graphics nor do I have the time to look through the masses and masses of graphics on the FM Community each day, if you can think of a way I can do then I’ll happily include it, for now I can’t.

FM Undergrounds last update was December 10th and it was plugged on December 10th, I’m not going to plug a site which doesn’t update am I? That’s totally pointless.

I plug blogs because they’re the ones that update, like I said I’m not going to plug sites which don’t update, that’s stupid and pointless, it’s not my fault blogs update more than resource sites is it? And calling them crap and saying they just want 15 minutes of fame is overly harsh, even if they do only survive for a week or two they still update more often than CM Frenzy, so put that your pipe and smoke it. (wow that came off as insulting, didn’t mean it in that way, but it is a fair point).

I don’t choose what I link to, I link to all the new content from around the community each day. If the community wants to have wars and bitch then that’s obviously what the community wants and that’s what they get. If they want guides or articles then they’ll update with them and that’s what they’ll get. I can’t do much more than plug what’s there can I?

The point of this is to give everyone a fair chance to get readers and inform people of what’s going on around the community on a daily basis, not to selectively pick and choose what I think people should read and what they shouldn’t.

Why on earth are there sites that thrive on existence by purely insulting other peoples work? This is an FM Community and not some flamewar. These childish antics need to stop, because at the end of the day the majority of us are only here for one reason: to give something back to the fans. If any of you have read the FM Community Digest which also features on fmwiki.com (a site i am a big fan of) you will know exactly what i’m on about, if you haven’t you might not want to unless you’re into reading links of some teenagers who apparently need to vent their anger online.

Basically what i’m getting at is that FM Portal has now become one of the big name sites among the FM Community and therefore has a responsibility, which it seems to be abusing by linking its readers to silly articles, which only purpose is to antagonize people. It’s goal is to bring fans togehter, yet it seems to be doing the opposite with its’ blog. If it didnt give these articles the publicity it does they wouldn’t keep popping up. Maybe the admin will soon realize and start posting useful links instead of childish quarrels.

Okay firstly the FM Portal is not a big name, I get about 50 readers per day for crying out loud, I’d love some more but alas they don’t come. I probably put more into this site than any other webmaster, what other sites do you know of that update on a (near) daily basis?

If I have a responsibility because I’m supposedly big, then you at CM Frenzy have a far greater responsibility than me because lets face it CM Frenzy is a million times more popular and bigger than the FM Portal, you probably get 50 readers per hour let alone in a day.

I have no responsibility whatsoever to be honest, I link to what’s there so that people don’t have to go looking for it and also so I can give feedback on content when necessary. If you want to see good content plugged on the portal, then you’ll have to create some good content, like I said I can only plug what’s there each day.

So in conclusion no it’s not my responsibility, it’s not my fault for anything that goes on, I’ve got nothing to do with any of that, I forever preach that people should try and be more community friendly and help each other out, but it always falls on deaf ears obviously, all I do is tell people what sites have updated each day, that’s it.

If you’re going to talk about responsibilities (of which I think we both have none since this is just a hobby after all) then you have the responsibility to create some good content for both your and my readers, so go and get on with it rather than slagging me off over something I can’t control.