I was sat reading the Sheffield Telegraph today and noticed they have an article on the 10 most useful Sheffield related sites. I thought great, they must mention the Sheffield Forum. But not a sausage on it! Disgrace.

Post an email address and we can all swamp them to show which is the most popular and useful website!

Not sure about an email address. But it was Peter Russell who wrote the article - pg.21.

I guess that will be [snip] then!

What were the sites?

Maybe you should ask Alan Powell, the Editor?

I saw it and thought it was absolutely disgusting.

I note in his heading he said the most useful he had found - what on earth was he looking for strip clubs?

Moon Maiden

There is obviously some jealousy going on with the Star & Telegraph and I suspect that they simply don't like / encourage an independent site like this that undermines the news that they carry and the coverage that their own (pretty pants) website gets (ie not a lot).

Sheffield Forum is a bit like CNN for Sheffield - always on, always there.

And the worst of it is... it's free!

Thanks to Phan for letting me know about this. I'm really shocked as I know for a fact that several of the Star's/Telegraph's journalists are members of this forum! Also, the forum is now the largest web site for the region, so it strikes me as very 'odd' that Peter decided that the forum wasn't "useful". I guess providing a way for local residents (nearly 6,000 of them!) to talk with each other, post details of their events and even ask the Liberal Democrat leader of the Council a question isn't useful, right? I mean it pales in comparison to one of Peter's featured sites: (http://www.sheffield-fm.co.uk/) which pretty much just consists of 30 links to external sites such as the Star, the council, etc.

It's even more shocking when you consider that they wrote a story when the site launched and also late last year, I provided them with a photo and story of a tram crash - which made The Star's front page!

I would be very interested to hear more on how the journalist conducted his 'research'?! After all, he claims he looked at 500 Sheffield related sites to select these 10... but I don't believe there are 500 different sites for Sheffield?! I would also be interested to know whether the editor is happy for the Telegraph to be portrayed as being so massively out of touch with the 'online world' of Sheffield...

Watch this space - I may need some help ;)

My understanding of irony isn't that great, but if you search Google for "top 10 websites in Sheffield" guess which site is listed #1... ;)

Thanks to an annonymous donor, you can now read the article:

Top half:
http://www.uploadthis.com/images/9/164.jpg

Bottom half:
http://www.uploadthis.com/images/9/165.jpg

To be honest Geoff, there are 6 thousand members of the forum, and with well over a hundred thousand posts, accessible and updated 24 hours a day I think we know where the future of media lies - and its not in print!

The Telegraph article is just a promotional piece designed to promote awareness of the Sheffield Newspapers website.

Note that www.sheffieldtoday.net doesn't have an open forum. In fact it's useful to compare with the local BBC website (http://www.bbc.co.uk/cgi-perl/h2/h2.cgi?state=threads&board=england.southyorkshire&). Interestingly, BBC Radio Sheffield seem to equally ignore SF.

We all know that www.sheffieldforum.co.uk is easily THE most popular website in the region, and the statistics prove it.

Aww, Tony you're too kind ;)

But as for this...

Originally posted by Tony
The Telegraph article is just a promotional piece designed to promote awareness of the Sheffield Newspapers website.

Yes, those were my thoughts exactly. Not only did they include a screen shot of their own site, but they also listed it first and omitted their main online rival. You could argue that this is perfectly understandable, however this *isn't* a promotional article, it's meant to be a truthful and informative article on the top 10 "most most" useful sites for locals!

I urge those of you, who no doubt have better grammar and less anger than me, to write to the Telegraph and urge them to concentrate more on accurate journalism and less on poorly disguised adverts.

Ha ha - out of 5 million websites* and they have got to number 10 and the (2 line) description is of a site that is 'quite slow ... and the information contained is not as compehensive as the others'.

Feel sorry for the other 4,999,990 sites which must be very slow and incomprehesive!

* should also point out that Google is actually telling you how many documents (not websites) include the word Sheffield (not are exclusively about it)

I don't have access to actually reading the Star every night, so I have their website as one my favourites. I log on read for 2 minutes then I'm done. Most of the time I come to the Forum and see the same topics being discussed at length. The Sheffield Forum has provided me more information about current events in Sheffield than the Star ever has. I often read about stuff on the Forum and then go to the Star and search their archives. Usually nothing comes up. So the Sheffield Forum "RULES" on breaking news. Guaranteed, someone witnesses something happening and it hits the Forum long before it hits the paper- if at all. I email my mum every day and she's always amazed that I know things before she does. I log on every day like I'm reading the daily paper, just to see what's happening in and around Sheffield.

Keep me informed everyone. Without you I wouldn't know the scoop.

Well if anyone wants to write to the letters page they can email them at:

sheffieldtelegraph@sheffieldnewspapers.co.uk

Letters to that address are for publication, so please make them printable!

Originally posted by Tony
The Telegraph article is just a promotional piece designed to promote awareness of the Sheffield Newspapers website.

Would this be the crappy site with about two news stories on it? Sheffield Forum features far more, and is fully interactive so I can get a response to a query within moments.

Originally posted by Tony
Well if anyone wants to write to the letters page they can email them at:

sheffieldtelegraph@sheffieldnewspapers.co.uk

Letters to that address are for publication, so please make them printable!
I've sent mine!
Come on, everybody:banana:

Originally posted by Tony
Interestingly, BBC Radio Sheffield seem to equally ignore SF.


Except when that boring old fart Roney has nothing to talk about then they seem to rip off the Forum at will.

I dont listen to him but Ive heard him when Im working in peoples house's and more often than not he's talking about something which we have discussed here.

If anyone from Radio Sheffield reads this, for gods sake get rid of that old boring bloke and the coffin dodgers that ring him and put Toby on all day.

P.s The Radio Sheffield Forum is rubbish and dosn't work.

There, thats that of my chest.

Just to add my three pennorth.
Why are we discussing what is not only a blatant advert, and an even worse web site, by a journo who is too lazy to do any kind of research or even type into a search engine...........ignore the buggas that hurts em even more, we are giving them free publicity.

Having said that my complaint email has been sent!

I forgot to add, Geoff I love that piece in the top corner...top man.

Originally posted by owdlad
Just to add my three pennorth.
Why are we discussing what is not only a blatant advert, and an even worse web site, by a journo who is too lazy to do any kind of research or even type into a search engine...........ignore the buggas that hurts em even more, we are giving them free publicity.

Having said that my complaint email has been sent!

I forgot to add, Geoff I love that piece in the top corner...top man.


yeah its bad publicity though