MeetFighters News

Dear members and visitors,

I year ago today our site, AllFighters, opened its gate to the public. I would take this opportunity to send a quick message to everyone about, well, basically about my feelings regarding running this site.

As many of you will know, this site is not ran by a corporation, it pretty much started as a pet project of mine: building a wrestling/fighting site that is good. How far I have come toward this goal is sometimes a matter of lively debate on the Chat; my personal take is that as long as the site helps people sharing my interest get in touch with each other, it's a win. (Click that last link, it's a great mess but somehow still makes me proud!) I will try to do my best keeping the site running and improving its feature set. I will also keep the site free of commercial interests that might compromise the goal of becoming the best personals site there is. So, there will be no ads, no membership fees and no product tie-ins.

I would also take this opportunity to say that although the most of you have been great members and courteous guests, there have also been plenty of incidents that have made running this site a less than pleasant experience. Dealing with guys who seem to have infinite time to argue about stuff in the terms of service they have already agreed to... The "entitleds" who behave as if they were paying customers on a luxury cruiser... The jerks who seem to derive their sole pleasure from being rude online... Certainly these people are a minority and I have become increasingly more efficient at dealing with them, but oddly they still have the largest emotional impact on me. I guess this comes with the territory.

On the bright side: we have 1736 members, 4209 photos (3834 of them visible to all members), 917 positive recommendations, 145786 messages delivered, etc... Thanks for everyone who has helped me get this far: those who have encouraged me, those who helped with administrative tasks, those who invited others to join, and a BIG thanks to those who have donated. You guys are the BEST!

I also have a request to make: please make sure your profile is GREAT. If you haven't already done so, do these:

• Set your location on the map so people will see where you live. Simply selecting your country is not good enough.
• Upload some photos. Making photos mandatory has been a long debated issue. My take is that I don't want to force people, because there are some who might have a legitimate reason to avoid this. Making it a requirement would end in lots of fake photos by otherwise good guys who feel they are being coerced. However, and I cannot emphasize this enough: photos are important. If you are seeking new opponents, and want to be taken seriously: you need a photo.
• Complete your profile. Keep your height and weight up to date. Write a longer introduction. Tell people about yourself, who you are and what you expect. It's who you are.
• Write recommendations and mark your past opponents. It helps if people see that you have met others before and had fun. It's what a social network is all about.

That's about it from me, for now. Thanks for reading all this. A little more about things to come: battle reports, better management of past opponents (separating "real" and "cyber"), more search options and more...

Happy wrestling to you all,
Your friendly AllFighters Admin.