Eels Blogs

Well, the good news is that I don't have to think about conflict of interest and how I involve myself with this site going forward. To be honest, that's a massive relief because I think I would have struggled not being able to post in the manner as I always have.

Over the last few days I've had various people say that some things that appeared on this site, hurt our campaign. I don't believe that to be the case. Indeed, my passion for this website has been re-ignited during the last few months. I believe it firmly established itself as the club's primary destination for intelligent and largely uncensored discussion about all aspects of the club.

I've been told that the fact that I let those posts about the chairman stand (the SMH articles from a number of years back that were posted), reflected badly on me and subsequently ParraFirst. I said from the get-go when I declared I was going to run, that I wouldn't get involved with any election-related moderation or put my own personal interests ahead of the site and I believe I lived up to that, all the way through. 

The site cops a fair bit of criticism because we don't moderate more heavily. I will stand by my belief that no posts should be removed unless they contravene the site's code of conduct. You can't have open, robust discussions without a little argy, bargy. I think Crow has been a great moderator since he put his hand up and we've had almost no disputes over posts being deleted or whatever for a while now. I believe a lot of people back off the interpersonal stuff so as it wouldn't reflect poorly on the site and I've really enjoyed the atmosphere of the site over the past month. I understand a lot of people's passions are running pretty hotly now, so I'll give you guys a few days to blow off some steam but we'll continue to concentrate our moderation activities about cutting down the insults between members.

Most importantly, I've been encouraged by the ability of this site to be an agent for change and to give the membership a voice. The site's traffic has been almost double compared to the same time last year so its influence will only continue to grow.

My plans going forward will be to improve the quality of the content on the site. I've kind of backed off on the journalism side of what I do over recent years, compared to say 2009 when we were breaking a lot of news related to the side. However, last week, I was able to have Super Eel come into my business and conduct a week of work experience. Elliot contributed a bunch of stories to the site that is my day job, and I think he learned a lot about journalistic-style writing that he'll be able to bring to the site going forward as we ramp that up.

If there is anybody who would like to contribute in a more formal capacity please get in contact with me. Ideally, if anyone is particularly passionate about areas like our juniors or NSW Cup or anything like that and would like to be our official reporter, I'd love to hear from you.