Characters make football clubs – David Moyes talks about his approach to recruitment

This is hard to keep up!

Are we going to return to building a team of them again?

ToffeeWeb is pretty much an aggregator for reports already in the media. No insight, no blue perspective, just content creation. Copy, run it through AI, paste.

If this is the new ToffeeWeb, I'm out. What a pile of crap.

Where's Paul Ferry, by the way?

We all are Everton 24/7 and probably scour other sites bringing news and opinions to this site, but have to try to formulate them into our own opinions or see them demolished if we can't defend them. We may even agree to differ, navigating a uneasy truce in our posting.

It's like preparing a essay and just transfering facts from books, instead of analysing and assimilating, then writing them in our own words. Words are a reflection of one's soul and if you are a Evertonian, you will recognise that Lyndon and Micheal were Evertonians. Anjishnu will catch the bug like the rest of us long suffering unfortunates.

We are also a tolerant bunch as a result and will contribute as new owners find their bearings. We have to do that anyway.

Next seasons fixtures are out on 18 June. Then we can all moan about 5 away games on the run — or not, as the case maybe.

I went through a phase where I never read Lyndon and Michael's articles – just read the comments. You would soon pick up what the article was about.

I've learnt a lot about life and football reading the views on here.

Born a blue, I fell out of love at the age of 10 when they sold my hero Alan Ball. It was a pure accident that I came back in the 80s and witnessed our triumphs.

Sadly I have detached my emotions once again, during the later years of Kenwright and the idiot spendthrift Moshiri...

Tarkowski's last-minute equaliser against the Red Shite is my personal highlight of the last 5 or so years. That Goodison roar is music to my ears and gives me goose bumps.

I really hope the new stadium is the start if a new exciting era. We have fallen so much behind the Red Shite's shadow, it's gonna take a small miracle to ever get back to being their equals – or, as in the '80s, better. At 65, I'm running out of time. My son is in his 40s and has never witnessed what I did. So I hope my grand kids will one day feel what it's like to beCchampions and BMD emulates or surpasses the old lady.

Cheers to all you blues around the world — we live in hope.

So it's not a problem for me that they bring news from other sources, just like TW has always done, actually.

I now go straight past the original article and into the comments which are mostly (but not completely) written by humans in the hope that a real supporter will have posted something knowledgable and worth reading.

In 5 years time, most supporters will either not know the difference or be switched off from the site completely. I am very close to switching off completely from this technotripe.

We will soon have AI-generated podcasts with discussions between two smartphones with blue cases and artificial Californian Valley Girl voices in between the adverts.

Who the fuck are the content creators trying to impress with their constant recapping and repetition of career details/filling in paragraphs with stuff which a 5 year old can see is just verbal polyfilla?

Sadly, the sites are full of pointless, energy consuming “content” resembling badly constructed AI eBay adverts for pointless, useless Shyte.

Will this get past the “ being read by moderators for suitability” screen?

We have to be active, no choice: squad releases, loan returns leave us way under strength. Loans are going to be a key feature again: can we get them right? We need hungry rising stars needing playing time rather than injured cast offs.

Purchases are tough because more clubs will be active this window. Liverpool, Man Utd, Man City, Chelsea already splashing the cash. Brighton, Wolves, Bournemouth are mining for the same nuggets we are, and arguably have better established scouting networks.

I suspect there will be Branthwaite pressure, big bids may force our hand, hence links to other central defenders. It's going to be a busy but not easy few months.

I agree with wanting characters in the team. We are a team short on leaders. You can have plenty of talent but you also need winners, ask Peter Reid and Andy Gray.

What's an AI article?

I think we need better characters than him, Davie!

Like those who have posted above, I hate the way many online sources are going, especially the clickbait ones which all seem to have the same formula: Grabber Headline; insipid mind-numbing garbage on the first page, to make you scroll down through the ads; then a Second Headline; and below it one small sentence which usually contains the 'news' itself — and at least a link to the source of the news.

I hope our folks don't go headlong this same path, but the pressures are there to put up content and get readers. My hope is that it can be done with an individual touch, not by emulating these other sites but by maintaining a more independent assessment of the news — but from a strongly Evertonian perspective.

One thing I think we have to be careful of is repetition, which I personally hate. There is a journalistic style, though, which seeks to fill in the so-called background for the lowest common denominator — which I think runs a dangerous path of alienating the vast majority of readers we have on here who are keeping up with the news and very much don't need to hear it repeated again and again.

I think AI is a somewhat different problem, as those pieces Ian Jones submitted to us have shown. (Paul @17, AI will write an entire article for you if you give it the right prompts.)

It can certainly help in preparing content, but the stigma associated with it is clearly off-putting for many. Whether that changes over time, I don't know, but I'd like to think that, if AI content is used, it moderated, curated, edited by a humanoid to make it more acceptable for most readers.

Andy, you asked about Paul Ferry. His attacks on other posters have never stopped, but they seem to have become a lot worse, leading to long tirades that have nothing to do with the topic. I don't believe this is what people want to read on here and I hope he can constrain himself to posting about the topic.

I think one of the key moves in getting stories on here is to get a lot more genuine “Good News“ articles like Charlie Adam is leaving Everton — cracking start to my day that!

Whilst bizarre, libertarian, flat earth, anti-immigrant, manosphere, anti-vax conspiracy theorising is permitted.

Provided it is said politely?

I'm always tempted to 'editorialize' with my own (usually strongly held) opinion in such items… but over time, you can always guarantee that someone else will post exactly what I think about the matter in hand. So I've learnt to be slightly more 'balanced' — but this never will be like the Beeb!

I usually knock that stuff on the head too if I see it.

I don't know if you are flagging such comments and reporting them as 'abusive' — I haven't seen such a report for a very long time (pre-transition) and I have no idea where they go!

I suspect you have one poster in particular in mind. Yea, he's good at sliding it in without attracting a lot of attention, but I shall try to be more vigilant.

As I said 15 minutes ago on the Beto 3 thread, I've been away from TW for quite a while, so have just realised this site is now under new owners.

Thought LL and MK (not Michael Keane, as it goes) had left. Are you still adjudicating in some regard, Mr K?

While we are complaining, one of the things that irritates me are when cliques develop.

I've posted on here for years and while I may talk nonsense from time to time among what I would consider good viewpoints, there are certain fellow fans I have never ever had a response from good or bad.

They are not obliged to thats true but I do find it strange, why.

These sites are businesses who need posters all year to keep their business alive. I did worry when both Michael and Lyndon left as the new owners seemed to be struggling, but it seems Michael has got them back to what T/W does best which is put up posts which gets the posters commenting.

Thank you for tidying up and saying exactly what I wanted to say in my post but could never do it as well.

I appreciate how the site owners need to monetise their content and keep it as a free of charge service to the likes of us. So a certain amount of clickbait writing has to be tolerated.

I just wish it could all be done by humans. AI might be great for working out an electric car's charging regime, or diagnosing illness from a scan. But I can't abide it being used in a medium where opinion and discussion are the reasons for its existence.

It sort of undermines the years of dedicated work that you, LL and others have put into making the site what it is — the best football site bar none.

It's a tough balance to strike, I'd imagine. We all want enough content to keep us engaged and debating each other about football, mental health, wars in the Middle East, and the best part of Liverpool to be from. On the other hand, the click-bait, churn-it-out, seemingly-AI generated stuff cheapens the site quite a bit. I was actually so convinced that Anjishnu's stuff was written by ChatGPT that I ran some of it through AI detectors to find out (it appears it's likely not).

I thought people would gravitate to Evertonia, because the quality is so much higher, but I assume some combination of less regular content and getting a critical enough mass to leave TW when we're conditioned to it means it hasn't taken hold. In some perfect world, I think, Lyndon would add to his occasional deep dives with some other true Blues-written pieces; we would all leave for Evertonia; and to get the regular doses we need, people would comment on threads that just have headlines (eg: “re-sign DCL, yes or no?”). I think also to get improved content, people would pay £50/year and then demand it.

I'm not buying that Anjishnu is going to become a Blue. He's a content creator working for a site that just cares about clicks, and he doesn't participate in the comments, which I think matters in order to feel connected to the stuff being written. But I guess for now it's all we've got. It just would feel better if we got 3-5 thoughtful pieces a week instead of these 1-2 day periods where a bunch of crap all gets thrown at us at once.

I am willing to tolerate some AI experiments but if the material is not up to standard I am going meta on the discussions.

There won't be any fewer comments, as it's the comments themselves (as much as the initial article) which generate so many of the subsequent comments. Less is more.

Perhaps the need is to be a bit more selective now?

Hi Kev @24, and welcome back. I've been helping the new guys through the transition in site ownership, and doing the matchday stuff, but obviouslyy that is on a break now.

Raymond @25, I assume by 'cliques' you mean a few posters who ramp up the banter with a string of posts between them... that very often go off topic? That's the point at which I try to cut them off, if I'm actively monitoring the site.

But if you're looking for more responses to your own posts, I think that part of it is completely organic.

Brian @26, I think you nail the challenge here, which is to put up articles with enough "genuine" content (to co-opt Brent's perfect word @32!), but not so many that we are descending into the clickbait world.

Micky @28, I don't think news items are being generated by AI, but Ian Jones openly used it for his recent Beto vs Calvert-Lewin trilogy… which was interesting to a point, but fell well flat in the final piece — definitely a case of "less is more", Brent @32.

Jonanthan @29, your extensive comments are much appreciated as they perfectly capture a range of issues that are in play here.

And Raymond @34:

It's the comments and banter from posters that I'm most interested in — provided the topic is relevant.

That pretty much captures it in one simple statement.

Thanks, all.

They probably show a lot lower views on the page stats, which may be why they haven't been done so far, but I will raise this again and see if we can get something moving there.

"There is a journalistic style, though, which seeks to fill in the so-called background for the lowest common denominator — which I think runs a dangerous path of alienating the vast majority of readers we have on here"

This is the problem I have with some of the content, the background info that we already know, repeated in each new article.

But I guess the site owners are looking for their content to be picked up by other sources that are maybe not True Blue and their readers wouldn't know the background?

As I said at #13, TW is my only news source so I just skip over the background noise to get to the actual content.

But guys, if you don't like the articles, submit some of your own.

Everton say nothing. Everton generally do nothing that enriches its fanbase.
Everton really don't care about the fanzines. Probably despise those who run and participate in or on them.

If genuine verified news is all you want, switch off your phone and come back for the first game.

A lot of people have an extremely low opinion of journalists but, if they tried doing a spot of journalism themselves, they might find it's a lot harder than it looks!