Let me start with an email from Jon Cooper, which led me to write this particular online ed so I could explain a few things…

(Begins) I must say I'm getting a little irritated by the constant slagging off of our new stadium. I don't think I've read a single article from your site recently that was about anything else. We all anticipated that there would be some teething problems, as is always the case with a project this size. I'm convinced that many of the issues you guys talk about will be resolved once everyone and everything has settled down. Just for a change, can you not publish some other, more positive articles, like about how well the team is starting to gel (apart from the freezing cold day in Moscow)? Just thought i'd give you this feedback, as there are a lot of people with similar views to me who are drawn to the onlinegooner via NewsNow. (Ends)

So just to clarify how things work here to all the regular visitors to this site. Basically, onlinegooner is an open church. The only policy as such is that we generally substitute the ‘E’ word when referring to our new stadium, consistent with the printed issue of The Gooner. Other than that, the only limits to what we will post are obviously discriminatory remarks, as well as asterisking expletives. Oh and anything which we think might get us into legal hot water.

The exclusive articles you read are basically the longer emails we receive. Shorter ones are sometimes combined into one ‘exclusive’ or compiled in ‘feedback corner’ (which I admit, your ed has fallen behind with badly due to time pressures). If we are getting a lot of articles about the reasons why people leave the ground early and the displeasure suffered as a result from those who don’t, it’s because that is what you are sending us. We post what we receive, although it’s not possible to post every single thing we are sent, we try our damnedest to. The writer is generally named, the exception being if a writer has submitted something anonymously for reasons which should be obvious.

There are other areas of the site which have suffered, unquestionably, as we try and keep up with all the material we get which is posted as exclusives. The bottom line is that we hope there’s enough fresh writing on the site to justify you popping in once a day to see what’s new. Due to the decent amount of submissions we are getting, once change that is imminent is that there will no longer be any need to post articles from the current printed issue of The Gooner (and I am all too well aware that the ‘current issue’ page is well out of date, but when that is updated, it will just feature the front and back covers and the contents of the current issue, but no links to actual articles).

This is starting to feel like a Catholic confessional, but I will continue safe in the knowledge that those who are not interested will have already stopped reading! Other sections of the site which are intended for some attention (aside from those already mentioned) are the printed issue archive, the match views and the gallery. Basically, online editorials and exclusives are easy because they can be posted by myself with my Luddite tendencies due to an automated posting system that our excellent webmaster has set up. Other stuff he has to post himself which isn’t really supposed to be the idea as he is more concerned with setting up the framework of the site and not the nitty gritty of individual postings. There is a plan to change the amount of stuff your ed can do here though and once the back of this has been broken, things should slowly improve. Bear with us, it’s taken us long enough to get this far!

In truth, our forum is a place I feel duty bound to visit, but frankly struggle for time. Last time I looked, things seemed to be getting busier, but when all is said and done, this part of the site is currently pretty much overseen by our moderator ‘Dicko’, to whom both my apologies (for my own lack of input) and my thanks are due.

One new area we will begin to experiment with is the blog phenomenon. The idea is to set up a section where approved bloggers can post around once a week, maybe more often if the fancy takes them, through a similar automated system to the one currently used by me to get stuff online. So if you have any interest in hosting your own Arsenal-related blog on the site, get in touch and – initially – we’ll start posting them as exclusives before that part of the site is established. Obviously we are looking for writers who have something slightly different or insightful to say, as there’s no point in posting something that isn’t going to capture the imagination of the Arsenal online public just for the sake of it.

Enough waffle, and please excuse the self-indulgence on this one occasion. If there’s one thing I want you to take away from this it is that stuff posted on this site is from many and varied individuals. No-one ‘represents’ The Gooner viewpoint as such, because frankly there is no such thing. And if you want to read more positive articles, or ones on different themes, then by all means send them in and we will post them. However, in life, I tend to find that those who are content have less motivation to spend time expressing their feelings. I could write something the length of ‘War and Peace’ on the theme of women when I am searching for love, but once this dog has found somewhere to bury his bone, he’s got better things to do!